Robin Sloan Quotes

I'm going to put the moves on her,' he says gravely. 'Things might get weird.' He says it like a commando setting up a midnight raid. Like: Sure, this is going to be extraordinarily dangerous, but don't worry. I've done it before.

On both sides, they've failed us...of course, we know about the industrialists. Their corn syrup and cheese product. Their factory farms ringed by rivers of blood and shit, blazing bonfires of disease barely contained by antibiotic blankets. These are among the most disgusting scenes in the history of this planet...

But on the other side...the organic farms, the precious restaurants...these are toy supply chains. 'Farm to table,' they say. Well. When you go from farm to table, you leave a lot of people out...I think more poorly of these people than I do of the industrialists, because they know better. They know it's all broken, and what do they do? They plant vegetables in the backyard.

There was more to upgrade. I went to a shop in downtown Oakland that sold salt of every kind and color, black and pink and blue. Each variety sat shimmering in a glass canister, priced by the ounce, with a handwritten card recounting its biography: here, salt from the beaches of Gujarat; there, salt from the pans of Brittany; behold, salt from the suburbs of Portland.

I backed slowly out the door. I would stick with Diamond Crystal.

The thinnest tendrils of dawn are creeping in from the east. People in New York are softly starting to tweet.

After that, the book will fade, the way all books fade in your mind. But I hope you will remember this:
A man walking fast down a dark lonely street. Quick steps and hard breathing, all wonder and need. A bell above a door and the tinkle it makes. A clerk and a ladder and warm golden light, and then: the right book exactly, at exactly the right time.

I sit up straight and do the first thing a person is supposed to do in an emergency, which is send a text message.

The nature of immortality is a mystery,' he says, speaking so softly that we have to lean closer to hear.' But everything I know of writing and reading tells me that this is true. I have felt it in these shelves and in others.

It is very quiet. I set my chin into my palm and count my friends and wonder what else is hiding in plain sight.

We take the subway.Grumble's next message came through after breakfast, and it said:

theres a grumblegear3k waiting for you at 11 jay street in dumbo. ask for the hogwarts special. hold the shrooms.

This girl has the spark of life. This is my primary filter for new friends (girl- and otherwise) and the highest compliment I can pay. I've tried many times to figure out exactly what ignites it — what cocktail of characteristics come together in the cold, dark cosmos to form a star. I know it's mostly in the face — not just the eyes, but the brow, the cheeks, the mouth, and the micromuscles that connect them all.

Kat's micromuscles are very attractive.

I was drunk and tired and happy. More than happy: delighted. Proud of myself — not just for making the bread, but for sharing it, and for making a few friends, even if they were all programmers and Loises. Maybe programmers and Loises are all you need.

Lost in the shadows of the shelves, I almost fall off the ladder. I am exactly halfway up. The floor of the bookstore is far below me, the surface of a planet I've left behind.

Compaq Lois spoke. Her voice was not kind or coddling, but stern. “Do you like your job?” My hesitation answered for me. “I know I have strong opinions about everything — I can’t help it, I do — but this one’s the strongest. I waited too long to get out of that office. Much too long. I weep for those years.” The seriousness of her statement quieted the room.

Her home is the burrow of a bibliophile hobbit — low-ceilinged, close-walled, and brimming over with books.

Thank you, Teobaldo. You are my greatest friend. This has been the key to everything.