Mr. Penumbra's 24-hour Bookstore
by Robin Sloan
(Picador 2012)
When every single piece of media you consume is time-shifted, does that mean it's actually you that's time-shifted?
Page 40.
Google's astonishing advertising algorithms have delivered to me a supercute girl, and I have no idea what to do with her.
Page 51.
Beautiful late-night hacker girl.
Page 52.
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 comes together in the cold, dark cosmos to form a star. I know it's mostly in the face - not just the eyes but eh brown, the cheeks, the mouth, and the micromuscles that connect them all.
Kat's micromuscles are very attractive.
Page 53.
We probably just imagine things based on what we already know, and we run out of analogies in the thirty-first century.
Page 60.
People want things to be real. If you give them an excuse, they'll believe you.
Page 66.
Books: boring. Codes: awesome. These are the people who are running the internet.
Page 201.
I know he's using a Jedi mind trick on me right now. But it's a really good Jedi mind trick.
Page 218.
The whole world is just a patchwork quilt of crazy little cults, all with their own secret spaces, their own records, their own rules.
Page 253.
There is no immortality that is not built on friendship and work done with care. All the secrets in the world worth knowing are hiding in plain sight.
Page 288.
Your life must be an open city, with all sorts of ways to wander in.
Page 288.
... of the willingness to entertain absurd ideas. It is a habit that is highly prized.
Page 322.
The measure of a bookstore is not its receipts, but its friends.
Page 323.
It's not over until you hold the book's ashes in your hands, weeping at the year's you've lost.
Page 330.