Robin Sloan Quotes & Sayings

She's wearing the same red and yellow BAM! T-shirt from before, which means (a) she slept in, (b) she owns several identical T-shirts, or (c) she's a cartoon character - all of which are appealing alternatives. — Robin Sloan

Why do organizations need to mark everything with their insignia? It's like a dog peeing on every tree. Google is the same way. So was NewBagel. Using — Robin Sloan

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. — Robin Sloan

At first I thought I had a crush on her, but then I realized she's an android. — Robin Sloan

But I think the writers had their turn," she says, "and now it's programmers who get to upgrade the human operating system. — Robin Sloan

Let me give you some advice: make friends with a millionaire when he's a friendless sixth-grader. — Robin Sloan

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

This job has three requirements, each very strict. Do not agree to them lightly. Clerks in this store have followed these rules for nearly a century, and I will not have them broken now. ( ... ) Two: You may not browse, read, or otherwise inspect the shelved volumes. Retrieve them for members. That is all"
( ... )
"You must keep precise records of all transactions. The time. The customer's appearance. His state of mind. How he asks for the book. How he receives it. Does he appear to be injured. Is he wearing a sprig of rosemary on his hat. And so on — Robin Sloan

Oh, I am very familiar with the internal monologue. — Robin Sloan

That's what spies do, right? They walk to the bakery and buy a loaf of bread everyday - perfectly normal - until one day they buy a loaf of uranium instead. — Robin Sloan

I'd sit at my kitchen table and start scanning help-wanted ads on my laptop, but then a browser tab would blink and I'd get distracted and follow a link to a long magazine article about genetically modified wine grapes. Too long, actually, so I'd add it to my reading list. Then I'd follow another link to a book review. I'd add the review to my reading list, too, then download the first chapter of the book - third in a series about vampire police. Then, help-wanted ads forgotten, I'd retreat to the living room, put my laptop on my belly, and read all day. I had a lot of free time. — Robin Sloan

Girl Talk, produced by Andy Warhol. — Robin Sloan

At Google, they eat lunch on graph paper. — Robin Sloan

These days, the phone only carries bad news. It's all "your student loan is past due" and "your uncle Chris is in the hospital." If it's anything fun or exciting, like an invitation to a party or a secret project in the works, it will come through the internet. — Robin Sloan

Its circumference was tiny, but he had a life, and he would not give it up. — Robin Sloan

Some of them are working hard indeed."
"What are they doing?"
"My boy!" he said, eyebrows raised. As if nothing could be more obvious: "They are reading. — Robin Sloan

It's not like we have the same brains as people a thousand years ago."
Wait: "Yes we do."
"We have the same hardware, but not the same software. — Robin Sloan

Each big idea like that is an operating system upgrade," she says, smiling. Comfortable territory. "Writers are responsible for some of it. They say Shakespeare invented the internal monologue."
Oh, I am very familiar with the internal monologue.
"But I think the writers had their turn," she says, "and now it's programmers who get to upgrade the human operating system."
I am definitely talking to a girl from Google. "So what's the next upgrade?"
"It's already happening," she says. "There are all these things you can do, and it's like you're in more than one place at one time, and it's totally normal. I mean, look around."
I swivel my head, and I see what she wants me to see: dozens of people sitting at tiny tables, all learning into phones showing them places that don't exist and yet are somehow more interesting ... — Robin Sloan

Don't forget your ruler on your first day of cult! — Robin Sloan

Then: I google "time-series visualization" and start work on a new version of my model, thinking that maybe I can impress her with a prototype. I am really into the kind of girl you can impress with a prototype. — Robin Sloan

Once told, stories take on a life of their own. — Robin Sloan

Kat is talking to someone else now, a slender brown-skinned boy who's joined the line just behind her. He's dressed like a skater, so I assume he has a PhD in artificial intelligence. — Robin Sloan

I'm really starting to think the whole world is just a patchwork quilt of crazy little cults, all with their own secret spaces, their own records, their own rules. On — Robin Sloan

San Francisco is a good place for walks if your legs are strong. — Robin Sloan

People want things to be real. If you give them an excuse, they'll believe you. — Robin Sloan

But Ruby, my language of choice since NewBagel, was invented by a cheerful Japanese programmer, and it reads like friendly, accessible poetry. — Robin Sloan

Books of silver; books of bone; and yet the strangest thing you see in all your years at Galvanic is a boy in a ski-mask, sitting in a basement, using a computer. — Robin Sloan

he saw that Gerritszoon was a searcher, too. — Robin Sloan

Rosemary, why do you love books so much?"
( ... )
"Well, actually, I love books because books are my best friends. — Robin Sloan

Lately, even the Waybacklist borrowers seem to be missing. Have they Been seduced by some other book club on the other side of town? Have they all bought Kindles?
I have one, and I use it most nights. I always imagine the books staring and whispering, Traitor! - but come on, I have a lot of free first chapters to get through. My Kindle is a hand-me-down from my dad, one of the original models< ... > There are newer Kindles with bigger screens and subtler industrial design, but this one is like Penumbra's postcards: so uncool it's cool again. — Robin Sloan

Kat is sitting cross-legged on the floor in her underwear and red T-shirt, leaning in to her laptop. I'm on the lip of the bed above her with my Kindle drawing power from her USB port - um, not a euphemism - reading "The Dragon-Song Chronicles" for the fourth time. — Robin Sloan

Your life must be an open city, with all sorts of ways to wander in. — Robin Sloan

Maybe his big build isn't a linebacker's after all; maybe it's a librarian's. — Robin Sloan

Stuff that used to be hard just isn't hard anymore! — Robin Sloan

Now, for the first time in my life, I empathize 100 percent with Fluff McFly. My heart is beating at hamster-speed and I am throwing my eyes around the room, looking for some way out. — Robin Sloan

I can't eat pizza. If we actually end up with a pizza, it's going to be your responsibility to consume it. Do not let me have any. Even if I ask for some." He pauses. "I'll probably ask for some. — Robin Sloan

Yes, everyone else is smart, everyone else is cool, everyone else is healthy and attractive - but she brought you. — Robin Sloan

He's like a storybook spirit, a little djinn or something, except instead of air or water his element is imagination. — Robin Sloan

She's scrolling fast through my code, which is a little embarrassing, because my code is full of comments like 'Hell, yeah!' and 'Now, computer, it is time for you to do my bidding. — Robin Sloan

Do people even look at one another?"
"Not really. Everything that matters is on your screen. There's an agenda that rearranges itself. There's a back-channel chat. And there's fact-checking! If you get up to speak, there are people cross-referencing your claims, supporting and refuting you
"
It sounds like an engineer's Athens. — Robin Sloan

There is no immortality that is not built on friendship and work done with care. — Robin Sloan

I walk alone in the darkness and wonder how a person would begin to determine the circumference of the earth. I have no idea. I'd probably just google it. — Robin Sloan

I tell him, and I write it down as I go. It makes me feel better, as if the weirdness is flowing out of my blood and onto the page, through the dark point of the pen — Robin Sloan

Turning the pages of this encoded codex, I realize that the books I love most are like open cities, with all sorts of ways to wander in. This thing is a fortress with no front gate. You're meant to scale the walls, stone by stone. — Robin Sloan

What if, you know - what if hanging out with Griffo Gerritszoon wasn't always that great? What if he was weird and dreamy? What if the best part of him was the shapes he could make with metal? That part of him really is immortal. It's as immortal as anything's going to get. — Robin Sloan

I see it now. You cheated - would that be fair to say? And as a result, you have no idea what you have accomplished. — Robin Sloan

Lapin breaks away from Broadway and picks a path toward Telegraph Hill. Her velocity is steady, even as the landscape rises underneath her; she's the little eccentric that could. — Robin Sloan

This is Mat's secret weapon, his passport, his get-out-of-jail-free card: Mat makes things that are beautiful. — Robin Sloan

Ometimes discipline is the truest form of kindness. — Robin Sloan

If this sounds impressive to you, you're over thirty. — Robin Sloan

Penumbra's cult runs on egregious licensing fees — Robin Sloan

He was a religious kid, and the goldsmith's trade turned him off. He spent all day melting old baubles down to make new ones - and he knew his own work was going to suffer the same fate. Everything he believed told him: This is not important. There is no gold in the city of God. — Robin Sloan

The buzz about Google these days is that it's like America itself: still the biggest game in town, but inevitably and irrevocably on the decline. Both are superpowers with unmatched resources, but both are faced with fast-growing rivals, and both will eventually be eclipsed. For America, that rival is China. For Google, it's Facebook. (This is all from tech-gossip blogs, so take it with a grain of salt. They also say a startup called MonkeyMoney is going to be huge next year.) But here's the difference: staring down the inevitable, America pays defense contractors to build aircraft carriers. Google pays brilliant programmers to do whatever they want. — Robin Sloan

We were looking at the sequence, not the shape. — Robin Sloan

The Con-U storage facility is the most amazing space I have ever seen. Keep in mind that I recently worked at a vertical bookstore and even more recently visited a secret subterranean library. Keep in mind, also, that I saw the Sistine Chapel when I was a kid, and , as part of science camp, I got to visit a particle accelerator. This warehouse has them all beat. — Robin Sloan

I'm making progress of my own: Kat invites me to a house party. Unfortunately, I can't go. I can never go to any parties, because my shift starts at precisely party o'clock. — Robin Sloan

Why do you love books so much? — Robin Sloan

I always thought the key to immortality would be, like, tiny robots fixing things in your brain," she says. "Not books. — Robin Sloan

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. — Robin Sloan

But down below, Penumbra is shouting, "Lean, my boy! Lean!"
And wow, do I ever want this job. — Robin Sloan

We need James Bond with a library science degree. — Robin Sloan

Maybe I'll just go ahead and buy her the Tufte book. I'll bring it wrapped in brown paper. Wait- is that weird? It's an expensive book. Maybe there's a low-key paperback edition. I could buy it on Amazon. That's stupid, I work at a bookstore. (Could Amazon ship it fast enough?) — Robin Sloan

It was tall, made of pale blue light, a creature with long arms and long legs and the shadow of a smile, and above it all, eyes that shone bluer still than its body. "What do you seek in this place?" the shade asked plainly. — Robin Sloan

This is exactly the kind of store that makes you want to buy a book about a teenage wizard. This is the kind of store that makes you want to be a teenage wizard. — Robin Sloan

I loved The Chronicles of Narnia. I loved The Chronicles of Prydain. Basically, 'Chronicles of' - I was in! — Robin Sloan

Walking the stacks in a library, dragging your fingers across the spines
it's hard not to feel the presence of sleeping spirits. — Robin Sloan

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. — Robin Sloan

Books: boring. Codes: awesome. These are the people who are running the internet. — Robin Sloan

Neel takes a sharp breath and I know exactly what it means. It means: I have waited my whole life to walk through a secret passage built into a bookshelf. — Robin Sloan

Google," he breathes. There's a long pause. "How curious." He straightens. He has the strangest expression on his face - the emotive equivalent of 404 PAGE NOT FOUND. — Robin Sloan

(about Kindles) I have one and I use it most nights. I always imagine the books staring and whispering, Traitor! — Robin Sloan

So I switch to my MacBook and make my rounds: news sites, blogs, tweets. I scroll back to find the conversations that happened without me during the day. When every single piece of media you consume is time-shifted, does that mean it's actually you that's time-shifted? — Robin Sloan

I will admit that I just want an excuse to put all my favorite people in a room together. — Robin Sloan

The way he says it, I can hear the capital letters. — Robin Sloan

So I guess you could say Neel owes me a few favors, except that so many favors have passed between us now that they are no longer distinguishable as individual acts, just a bright haze of loyalty. Our friendship is a nebula. — Robin Sloan

What do you seek in these shelves? — Robin Sloan

But when people are past a certain age, you sort of stop asking them why they do things. It feels dangerous. — Robin Sloan

Magic is not the only power in this world. — Robin Sloan

I didn't realize wizards were going to walk among us and we'd just call them Googlers. — Robin Sloan

Moffat's prose is fine: clear and steady, with just enough sweeping statements about destiny and dragons to keep things well inflated. The characters are appealing archetypes: Fernwen the scholarly dwarf is the everynerd, doing his best to live through the adventure. Telemach Half-Blood is the hero you wish you could be. He always has a plan, always has a solution, always has secret allies that he can call upon - pirates and sorcerers whose allegiance he earn with long-ago sacrifices. — Robin Sloan

If you were going to make a message last, how would you do it? Would you carve it into stone? Etch it into gold? Would you make your message so potent that people couldn't resist passing it on? Would you build a religion around it, maybe get people's souls involved? Would you, perhaps, establish a secret society? Or would you do what Gerritszoon did? SLIDE — Robin Sloan

This cult seems like it might have been designed specifically to prey on bookish old people - Scientology for scholarly seniors. — Robin Sloan

But, of course, the point of a programming language is that you don't just read it; you write it, too. You make it do things for you. And this, I think, is where Ruby shines ( ... ) — Robin Sloan

Immortality in a book-lined catacomb down beneath the surface of the earth, or death up here, with all this? I'll take death and a kebab. — Robin Sloan

Then we will do two things," Penumbra says, nodding. "First, I will tell you just a little of our history. Then, to understand, you must see the Reading Room. There, my proposal will become clear, and I dearly hope you will accept it."
Of course we'll accept it. That's what you do on a quest. You listen to the old wizard's problem and then you promise to help him. — Robin Sloan

Have they all bought Kindles? I have one, and I use it most nights. I always imagine the books staring and whispering, Traitor! - but come on, I have a lot of free first chapters to get through. — Robin Sloan

Corvina must have been so different then ... really literally a different person. At what point do you make that call? At what point should you just give someone a new name? Sorry, no, you don't get to be Corvina anymore. Now you're Corvina 2.0 - a dubious upgrade. — Robin Sloan

Hi there ... Let me ask you a question ... How would you find a needle in a haystack?"
The first-grader pauses, pensive, tugging on the green yarn around her neck. She's really thinking this over. Tiny gears are turning; she's twisting her fingers together, pondering. It's cute. Finally she looks up and says gravely, "I would ask the hays to find it."
...
Yes, of course. She's a genius!
...
It's so simple. Of course, of course. The first-grader is right. It's easy to find a needle in a haystack! Ask the hays to find it! — Robin Sloan

I feel a little whirl of dislocation
the trademark sensation of the world being more closely knit together than you expected — Robin Sloan

I for one welcome our new android overlords. — Robin Sloan

None of this represented the glorious next stage of human evolution, but I was learning things. I was moving up. — Robin Sloan

I feel crazy, but in a good way. — Robin Sloan

You know, I'm really starting to think the whole world is just a patchwork quilt of crazy little cults, all with their own secret spaces, their own records, their own rules. — Robin Sloan

Go deeper. More iterations. Don't hold back. — Robin Sloan

The smell!" Penumbra repeats. "You know you are finished when people start talking about the smell. — Robin Sloan

Corvina's got it wrong. Penumbra's schemes didn't fail because he's a hopeless crackpot. If Corvina's right, it means nobody should ever try anything new and risky. Maybe Penumbra's schemes failed because he didn't have enough help. Maybe he didn't have a Mat or a Neel, an Ashley or a Kat - until now. Corvina — Robin Sloan

You know, old books are a big problem for us. Old knowledge in general. We call it OK. Old knowledge, OK. Did you know that ninety-five percent of the internet was only created in the last five years? But we know that when it comes to all human knowledge, the ratio is just the opposite - in fact, OK accounts for most things that people know, and have ever known. — Robin Sloan

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. — Robin Sloan

Of course, of course. Drugs, music, a new age dawning ... and you came for an old book. — Robin Sloan

It turns out Dungeons & Dragons is much better on paper than it is in reality. — Robin Sloan