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Some things happened and some other things didn’t, and at one point I found I’d gone to a place where I married Jascha. Pyotr Frankis had been right: life was funny. It was also reasonably good and so was the relationship. And after the divorce, I got a job.
Pat Cadigan -
He was smiling. It was one of those sincere smiles grown-ups give kids when they’re trying to get them in arm’s reach for something bad. Doctors smile that way right before they give you a shot; teachers look the same just before they tell you they found out what you did. The Big Bad Wolf probably smiled at Red Riding Hood like that when he was pretending to be her grandma. Despite all my mother’s flaws including her mean streak, I never once saw that travesty of an expression on her face.
Pat Cadigan
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What a name – Pyotr Frankis. I wondered who had made it up for him. Pyotr Frankis, Jascha – Slavs all over the place, it would seem. Just like my great-grandmother. I felt for her in my mind about the same way you’d feel for a stray piece of food in your mouth with your tongue, but as usual, I had no sense of her beyond a particularly intense memory.
Pat Cadigan -
Everything seemed to happen when you were looking the other way.
Pat Cadigan -
Pushing herself up to a sitting position, she rubbed the side of her face and then blinked at what seemed to be a solid Avail of business suits. She looked up. ‘Mount Rushmore,’ she said. ‘Little far west of home for this time of year?’ The
Pat Cadigan -
That was it, then, civilization was officially collapsed if the cops had stopped ticketing abandoned cars and roosted on them instead.
Pat Cadigan -
The authenticity may have been dubious, but the excitement had been real.
Pat Cadigan -
Reaching in, he wrapped the exposed wires around his fingers and ripped them out. The locks released, letting the door fall open a crack.'That’s what we call a Luddite hack.'
Pat Cadigan
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Gator lifted the needle and dabbed at the decorated flesh, frowning. The cases on the Mimosa generally had terrible skin, but they were docile enough to make a good filing system, considering you could usually find them where you left them – they didn’t move around much on their own, and unlike other kinds of hardcopy, they seldom got stolen.
Pat Cadigan -
Lobby for Decency Declares Brain an Erogenous Zone, Demands Mandatory Hatting.
Pat Cadigan -
We’re looking for places that aren’t on a . If we put them on one, then anybody could find them.
Pat Cadigan -
It was a lonely thing. There was no way to be sure if it meant the same thing to both of you. He’d forgotten that part of making love, how you couldn’t assume that intent was as joined as bodies were.
Pat Cadigan -
TV and more TV. It looks like something out of an old movie," Sam said. “Forty, fifty years ago, they were always dragging out the TV screens when they wanted to show what the glorious future would look like. As if the future was just going to be more TV.” “And, as it turned out, it is,” Rosa said.
Pat Cadigan -
Because if you didn’t speak your truth, there was always something that would speak it for you that much louder.
Pat Cadigan
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The universe doesn't know good or bad, only less or more.
Pat Cadigan -
[Gina] I got them Bad Old Cosmic C-Word Blues Again. [Mark] What does ‘c-word’ mean? [Gina] It means continuing to believe even when you don’t feel it. Not letting go even when you can’t find squat to hold onto. Going all the way from the beginning to the end.
Pat Cadigan -
Don’t talk to yourself in such a way that if you did so to a friend, it would end your friendship. If you had a friend dealing with the same things, you wouldn’t berate that person, say, ‘You’re not working hard enough,’ ‘You suck,’ or ‘You’re not as good as [whomever].’ You’d offer your friend encouragement, you’d try to point out all the things your friend did right, and how much progress your friend had made. You should do no less for yourself. Be very careful how you talk to yourself. Because you are listening.
Pat Cadigan