## Metadata - Author: [[Robin Sloan]] - Full Title: Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore - Category: #books ## Highlights - She is Queen Kat Potente with her instant empire and I am her loyal consort. We won’t command them all for long, but hey: nothing lasts long. We all come to life and gather allies and build empires and die, all in a single moment—maybe a single pulse of some giant processor somewhere. ([Location 1690](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B008FPOIT6&location=1690)) - “The suburban mind cannot comprehend the emergent complexity of a New York sidewalk.” ([Location 1740](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B008FPOIT6&location=1740)) - Penumbra is, right now, teetering right on the boundary between charmingly weird old guy and disturbingly weird old guy. Two things tip the scales toward charm: First, his wry smile, which is not the smile of the disturbed, and micromuscles don’t lie. ([Location 1877](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B008FPOIT6&location=1877)) - We weave a path through the pods. All the totems of office ennui have been erected here: the instant coffee machine, the humming half-sized refrigerator, the huge multipurpose laser printer flashing PAPER JAM in red. There’s a whiteboard showing faded generations of brainstorms. Right now, in bright blue strokes, it says: OUTSTANDING LAWSUITS: 7!! ([Location 1900](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B008FPOIT6&location=1900)) - 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. ([Location 3495](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B008FPOIT6&location=3495)) - 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. It takes forty-one seconds to climb a ladder three stories tall. It’s not easy to imagine the year 3012, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. We have new capabilities now—strange powers we’re still getting used to. The mountains are a message from Aldrag the Wyrm-Father. Your life must be an open city, with all sorts of ways to wander in. 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.   Farrar, ([Location 3956](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B008FPOIT6&location=3956)) - 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. It takes forty-one seconds to climb a ladder three stories tall. It’s not easy to imagine the year 3012, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. We have new capabilities now—strange powers we’re still getting used to. The mountains are a message from Aldrag the Wyrm-Father. Your life must be an open city, with all sorts of ways to wander in. After that, the book will fade, the way all books fade in your mind. But I hope you will remember this: A ([Location 4141](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B008FPOIT6&location=4141))