Hallie

“Ah. American. That explained the clothes and the way he stood with his legs wide and his elbows out, as if he had a great deal more space than was actually available.”
― T. Kingfisher, What Moves the Dead

“I am never sure what to think of Americans. Their brashness can be charming, but just when I decide that I rather like them, I meet one that I wish would go back to America, and then perhaps keep going off the far edge, into the sea.”
― T. Kingfisher, What Moves the Dead

“I'm trapped next to this young techno-optimist guy. He explains that current technology will not longer seem strange when the generation who didn't grow up with it finally ages out of the conversation. Dies, I think he means.

His point is that eventually all those who are unnerved by what is falling away will be gone, and after that, there won't be any more talk of what has been lost, only of what has been gained.

But wait, that sounds bad to me. Doesn't that mean if we end up somewhere we don't want to be, we can't retrace our steps?

...

Later, Sylvia tells me her end of the table was even worse. The guy in the Gore-Tex jacket was going on and on about transhumanism and how we would soon shed these burdensome bodies and become part of the singularity. "These people long for immortality but can't wait ten minutes for a cup of coffee," she says.”
― Jenny Offill, Weather

“I offer her some birthday cake. She goes into the usual bit about temptation and sinfulness and maybe this and maybe that, and we have to go through every station of the fucking cross before she takes a bite of it.”
― Jenny Offill, Weather