Naomi Kritzer > Quotes

“Because really, there are two immutable laws of nature at work here: number one, love will find a way; and number two, if a sexual act can be conceived of, someone will pay money to watch it.”
― Naomi Kritzer, Cat Pictures Please and Other Stories

“I am the world's most badass cat picture aficionado. I recommend that you put down your gun and surrender.”
― Naomi Kritzer, Catfishing on CatNet

“Having access to knowledge didn't always mean understanding things. I do not entirely understand people.”
― Naomi Kritzer, Catfishing on CatNet

“There were supposed to be alarms for things like leaks, but there were also supposed to be locks on doors like the one I’d just come through.”
― Naomi Kritzer, Liberty's Daughter

“Aren’t all the steads owned by a partnership? I mean, on Min, when you ‘buy a stake,’ you’re buying a share of the property, basically. That’s what Mrs. Rodriguez said.” “I guess it’s kind of a difference in scale,” I said. “There are thousands of people on Min who have stakes. Sal only has twenty or thirty partners, and they own everything.” “They can’t possibly run the whole stead!” “No, of course not. They also have Associates, who are basically normal employees who live over there. Most of the actual biotech researchers are Associates. And they’ve got bond workers, like everyone else. There are almost a thousand Associates and bond workers.”
― Naomi Kritzer, Liberty's Daughter

“You’re dead set on making this harder, aren’t you?” he said to Faduma. “If by ‘harder’ you mean ‘in accordance with international law and basic morality,’ yes.”
― Naomi Kritzer, Liberty's Daughter

“In retrospect, his ambition to become an actual global dictator definitely should have been a red flag.”
― Naomi Kritzer, Catfishing on CatNet

“The U.S. government will provide transportation to citizens in danger under certain circumstances, and that was one of the reasons I’d snatched Lynn. They don’t recognize the validity of bond contracts generally and they consider a U.S. citizen being held to work in a skin farm to essentially have been kidnapped and imprisoned under dangerous circumstances.”
― Naomi Kritzer, Liberty's Daughter

“they said I needed kidney regeneration. That’s horribly expensive, but without it . . . Anyway, Janus told me the only place that would pay for that sort of treatment was a skin farm. I still wanted to refuse, but there’s a loophole when someone has a terminal condition and can’t pay for their treatment. Their contract can be sold without their consent to anyone willing to foot the bill. So that’s how I wound up in the skin farm.”
― Naomi Kritzer, Liberty's Daughter

“The people who did this shouldn’t get away with it. If it means new leadership for the Stead, that’s a good thing.” “Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe it’ll be people who are even worse.” “You can’t let that fear stop you from doing anything.”
― Naomi Kritzer, Liberty's Daughter

“He didn’t have a title, beyond “Mr. Garrison,” but that was true for a lot of the most powerful people on the seastead, because it wasn’t a title that gave you power here, it was money and influence.”
― Naomi Kritzer, Liberty's Daughter

“(What you should do if you ever get cholera, by the way, is drink rehydration fluid: 1 liter of clean water + 1/2 teaspoon of salt + six teaspoons of sugar. Since you can lose ten to twenty liters of water a day with cholera diarrhea you’ll need a lot of rehydration fluid, but as long as you keep drinking, you’ll probably survive.)”
― Naomi Kritzer, Liberty's Daughter

“I sat on the edge of my bed for a minute. Then, just like she’d told me to do, I opened my curtains. The sky was blue, and the windows of my apartment were in the right direction to get morning sunshine. I started my coffee, then went to open Twitter to read while it brewed. A pop-up message appeared instead: Don’t read Twitter. Here is a link to the Abelique discussion board community for artists.”
― Naomi Kritzer, Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 200, May 2023

“It took ten years to build the seastead. Obviously, at the end of that first decade, it was pretty small. But it was functional—the colonists had ships and platforms anchored into place, a stable population, desalination plants and power generators, and a cooperation agreement between Min, Rosa, Lib, Pete, and Amsterdarn. (Sal came later.)”
― Naomi Kritzer, Liberty's Daughter

“The weird thing,” he said, “is that if the desalination process weren’t working, people wouldn’t be drinking it, because you can taste salt. And you can filter out cholera with clean fabric. It is way harder to get rid of salt.” “This system is distillation based,” Faduma said. “What, seriously? That’s even weirder.” Leo took out a pen and started tracing back some of the pipes that ran through the office. “Let’s number everything. See if we can figure out what’s leading where.” It took two hours of patient untangling of pipes, but Leo and Faduma figured it out: Vodka Mike had been recycling the graywater—from the sinks and baths—without sanitizing it properly. There was a graywater collection unit—and Mike had been just letting it settle, and then putting it back in the system. “So someone was shitting in the sinks?” Zach said, horrified. “I wonder how much he saved on filters?” Leo said. “It’s a good thing the toilets on Lib all run on seawater  . . .” We disconnected the graywater collection from the rest of the system. Once it was flushed out, the water would be safe to drink again.”
― Naomi Kritzer, Liberty's Daughter

“I might enlist.” “Enlist?” “In the military. Which admittedly is a little like being a bond-worker, since you can’t quit, but they pay for everything. Housing, food, clothes, all your medical care  . . .”
― Naomi Kritzer, Liberty's Daughter