Skip to content

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 Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore (2012)

Another quote →

Source and credibility

Wikiquote does not flag this quote as disputed or misattributed.

Source: Chapter 31 “Epilogue” (p. 288; closing words)
Work: Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, 2012
Source quality: Precise citation Points to a specific work with a page, chapter, date or similar locator, so you can look it up.

More by Robin Sloan

He has the strangest expression on his face—the emotive equivalent of 404 page not found.

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore (2012)

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

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore (2012)

The Internet: always proving that you’re not quite as special as you suspected.

Sourdough (2017)

All Robin Sloan quotes →

More quotes by Robin Sloan

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

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore (2012)

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

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore (2012)

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

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore (2012)

And even if I fail—this is always the archivist’s consolation—perhaps I will have laid a foundation for someone wiser.

Sourdough (2017)

Belasco gave me a frank look. “A market in the Bay Area needs, at minimum, three things. It needs fancy coffee, weird honey, and sourdough bread.”

Sourdough (2017)

All Robin Sloan quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Robin Sloan (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.