13 quotes
Korolev stared at the man, who had the blundering, careless look of someone drunk on freedom since birth.
Burning Chrome (1986)
Vasopressin makes you remember, I mean really remember. Clinically they use the stuff to counter senile amnesia, but the street finds its own uses for things.
Burning Chrome (1986)
“As broker, I'm usually very careful as to sources.”
“You buy only from those who steal the best. Got it.”
Burning Chrome (1986)
If I was looking to be depressed, I’d come to the right place.
Burning Chrome (1986)
She swam through the submarine half-life of bottles and glassware and the slow swirl of cigarette smoke...she moved through her natural element, one bar after another.
Burning Chrome (1986)
Colonel Korolev twisted slowly in his harness, dreaming of winter and gravity. Young again, a cadet, he whipped his horse across the late November steppes of Kazakhstan into dry red vistas of Martian sunset.
Burning Chrome (1986)
We strolled past bales of raw wool and plastic tubs of Chinese microchips. I hinted that my employers planned to manufacture synthetic beta-endorphin. Always try to give them something they understand.
Burning Chrome (1986)
Got my jacket and took the stairs three at a time, straight out to the nearest bar and an eight-hour blackout that ended on a concrete ledge two meters above midnight.
Burning Chrome (1986)
Coretti didn't know how to dress. Clothing was a language and Coretti a kind of sartorial stutterer, unable to make the kind of basic coherent fashion statement that would put strangers at their ease.
Burning Chrome (1986)
Deke looked at her through a wash of tears. Student. That fed look, the oversize sweatshirt, teeth so straight and white they could be used as a credit reference.
Burning Chrome (1986)
There was coffee. Life would go on.
Burning Chrome (1986)
I put the shotgun in an Adidas bag and padded it out with four pairs of tennis socks, not my style at all, but that was what I was aiming for: If they think you're crude, go technical; if they think you're technical, go crude. I'm a very technical boy.
Burning Chrome (1986)
But then there are days when it's like they whip aside a curtain to flash you three minutes of sunlit, suspended mountain, the trademark at the start of God's own movie. It was like that the day her agents phoned, from deep in the heart of their mirrored pyramid on Beverly Boulevard, to tell me she'd merged with the net, crossed over for good...
Burning Chrome (1986)