Isabelle Duchamp > Isabelle's Quotes

“Vivian, look!’ chirped Kate, looking up at the amber skies. ‘It’s a sundog!’

Vivian stared into the waking light of Christmas dawn and saw not one, but two rising suns.

‘They’re rare, these. Must be the low-hanging ice crystals creating an echo. A mirror to the sun.’

Like an enormous blade of Æbe’trax, the parhelion had parted the sky in two sectors – one small and made out of dawn, the other large and moulded by nightfall. Each side was dominated by its own mirror-sun, strung across the low firmament like two Christmas baubles.

Vivian squinted. The larger sun was grazed by a shadow.”
― Louise Blackwick, The Book of Chaos

“With his tongue between his teeth, Officer Wally cocked his weapon and took aim.

BANG!

Mario felt the bullet enter his left foot, but carried on running undeterred. In place of screams, there was laughter. The golden ecstasy supplied by the drug was at its peak. It wouldn’t be long now; he could feel it.

BANG!

The second bullet caught him in his right foot, yet he dared not stop. It was near now, so near...

BANG!

“He missed,” Mario thought initially, but as he brought his hands to his lips, he tasted iron. Both his palms were bleeding profusely, and so were his feet. He laughed once again – head spinning, heart dancing, mind burdened by his search for meaning – his wet eyes on the velvet sky. The clouds were clearing.

‘The spear!’ he shouted to the heavens above. ‘Don’t forget the spear!’

It happened faster than any pair of eyes could capture it: the fourth bullet cut through the air with a tangible screech, and the nearby building exploded into applause. Like a marionette whose strings had been cut, Mario Fantoccio fell theatrically, the wound at his side painting the cobbles in Marsmeyer’s No.4 vermillion red.

The ground beneath him split down the middle, and from the depths of asphalt, he heard music. It was the Music of Strings, of Celestial Spheres – an underworld rhapsody with dark aftertones, gushing out of the earth like puss from a wound.

It was alluring, resplendent and at the same time, terrifying.

Demonic and eternal, devastating and yet hypnotizing, the Sounds of Hell beckoned, and like an obedient child, Mario followed, sinking deeper and deeper into the Underworld.

In a perfect moment of synchronicity, the orange sun of dusk broke through the rainclouds and cast a single beam of sunlight upon Mario’s forehead. He closed his eyes, his mind at ease, his head full of Music.

The cobbles trembled under the approaching sound of footsteps.

‘Where is he? Where did he go?’ said the pursuing man.

‘H-he just vanished, sarge. In-into thin air!’

‘Don’t be silly, Wally. People don’t just vanish into thin air. I know I got him. Heaven preserve me, I got him four times!’

‘Yes, sarge.’

‘What’s this now?’

‘Rather looks like our man, sarge. Or at least, his rough outline filled out in blood. Well, except—’

‘—except this one’s got wings,’ said the sergeant, his knees cracking as he crouched. He cautiously prodded the red shape with his index.

‘This ain’t blood, either.’

‘Sir?’

The sergeant shoved the finger in his mouth.

‘Theatrical red paint.”
― Louise Blackwick, The Underworld Rhapsody

“The Algorithm was Justice. The Neon God – Judge and Jury.”
― Louise Blackwick, 5 Stars

“Aurora shuddered, her face white with anger.

The only thing worse than having to compete for Gold Stars was not being allowed to compete anymore.

Muting was the Neon God’s favourite punishment, for He loved to hijack human language, almost as much as He loved hijacking perfectly human societal norms.

Judging people on their supposed worth was His favourite pastime, and God forbid you didn’t follow His arbitrarily-chosen set of beliefs, which appeared to change every hour.

Under the Neon God’s law, innocent words such as “powerline” or “screwdriver” had become obscene, trigger words that would most definitely get you muted, thrown in a Mind Prison or killed.”
― Louise Blackwick, 5 Stars

“The Neon God is a plague, a global pandemic brought to bear by our hatred and greed. Because of Him, we have lost our soul, our free will, our humanity.”
― Louise Blackwick, 5 Stars

“Only Chromeheads believe the Neon God is a true god.’

‘And yet we treat Him like one, all of us. We worship His Broadcast and we pray for His Justice and sacrifice on His altar each day. When our own eyes deceive us, we make His Jurors into Apostles of Truesight, or rely on worldview-enhancers like that drug Rhapsody or the VVV Visors. Day after day, we find our every thought and action judged by kynikois we can’t see, by arbitrary rules we don’t know, in a reality we rejected. We lead empty lives and so we empty the world of all meaning.”
― Louise Blackwick, 5 Stars

“Aurora looked upon a city divided by human perception.

A civil war was ongoing: between those for whom the real world had primacy and those who had chosen Truesight as their truth. To escape the existential horror of their impending finality, people had donned their orange-tinted Veravisum Virtual Visors and locked their fears behind a separate reality. A hyperreality found at odds with everyday life.

The result was a war of visions: between truth and falsehood, between regular people and the VVV’ed. Each party claimed to see reality for what it truly was and more often than not, both parties were right.”
― Louise Blackwick, 5 Stars

“At the Twilight of Gods bides the Weaver of Odds.”
― Louise Blackwick, The Weaver of Odds

“The room they had reached served as an impromptu drug-lounge in which a hundred naked addicts engaged in communal sex. One of them drew nearer and spontaneously relieved himself all over Aurora’s shoes.

‘You’re welcome,’ the addict said proudly, buttoning up his soiled jeans and walking away like a champ.

A nearby woman saw the whole thing and smirked. ‘You’re one lucky lady, you know that?’ she smiled toothlessly. The remnants of today’s orgy were still visible in her mouth. ‘I wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire.”
― Louise Blackwick, 5 Stars

“The multiverse has selected its champions – had selected you – and yet under the blazing suns, here we stand: self-seeking and imperfect, lacking in wisdom, lacking in courage, afraid of death and of pain; afraid of our choices and the consequences they bring—’

‘—and you ask yourselves: if only I could be that one person that makes it all better; that stops the degrading of worldly values. If only I could be that brave person that brings out the good in the bad.”
― Louise Blackwick, The Weaver of Odds

“Why have you climbed all the way up here? What were you looking for? Would I be too presumptuous to assume you were looking for help? That you hoped you would hear something that would be of guidance – of relevance – to you, young members of a reality that is running out of time?”
― Louise Blackwick, The Weaver of Odds

“gold light burned faintly.
From his cosy window seat, Mario was tracing a frost-flower on the windowpane with an unsure finger. Were its perfectly-rendered geometric patterns a product of nature, or were they an artefact of metaphysics? Was the frost-flower to the Masters what a work of Art was to him? Did the Masters of Strings truly control every aspect of reality?
The fractal flower slowly melted under Mario’s fingertip.
“No work of chance here,” he bitterly thought. “This was by design.”
― Louise Blackwick, The Underworld Rhapsody

“A blanket is only as good as the thread you weave in.”
― Louise Blackwick, Vivian Amberville - The Weaver of Odds

“What time is it?’
‘Whatever time you want it to be,’ she gave him a cheeky wink. ‘Now be honest, did you ask for free will?’
‘How did you—?’
Amanita joined Mario beneath the covers. The ethereal Threads tethering her wrists phased through the thick wool blankets like sunlight through a windowpane.
‘The bird that acknowledges its cage only ever sings of freedom,’ she said dreamily.”
― Louise Blackwick, The Underworld Rhapsody

“Step, step, step, I fall and they lift me, slip-slop, slip-slop, through the watery mud. Each step is a heartbeat on my way to the grave, and the longest walk I will ever take. Plip, plip, I slip and they gather me. How strong are these savages, and how tight is their grip! Plip, plip, plip patters the rain, and I fall, and I call, and I stall for more time.

But my time has run out.”
― Louise Blackwick, Jump into the Abyss!

“Listen to me, dear. When life hands you something, you take it, for in all likelihood, there’s a large crisis heading your way.”
― Louise Blackwick, The Weaver of Odds

“The Neon God is too big to fall now; too intricately interwoven with our technology, with our minds, to be ripped out from humanity. We let Him in, Miss Aurora. We allowed Him to occupy the Dark behind our sentient eyes. He is us now, and we are Him.”
― Louise Blackwick, 5 Stars

“And our love goes beyond flesh; it transcends Death's reminder. In the Underworld Library, two books sharing a binder”
― Louise Blackwick, Jump into the Abyss!

“Your badges represent just that: your choice, your conscious choice to place yourselves outside a predefined path; beyond the care of omniscient beings, and into your own capable hands.

For a Weaver’s freewill is absolute; a Weaver is a master of their own life; a Weaver creates their own reality – but more importantly – a Weaver is responsible for reality.”
― Louise Blackwick, The Weaver of Odds

“Puppets and paintbrushes...
Mario was well on his thousandth decapitation when it occurred to him these simple objects were mere symbolic manifestations of his deep-seated phobias: fear of failure and fear of success. The first one had stopped him from following his dream; the second had stopped the dream from following him.
“To be simultaneously afraid of success and of failure is like going to bed scared and waking up terrified,” he reflected. “Your mind’s all wooden, your head’s screwed on backwards and before you know it, you’re a vermillion blotch on someone else’s canvas and the entire world is pulling your strings.”
― Louise Blackwick, The Underworld Rhapsody

“A day may come when all hope is lost; when the oceans run red with our blood, and our darkest hour is upon us— and when it comes, that red day of reckoning, we turn, my dears, not to our rulers-in-good-times, but to our leaders-in-bad-times.”
― Louise Blackwick, The Weaver of Odds

“Our dream of happiness is waiting for another universe to collide with our own, and change what we ourselves cannot.”
― Louise Blackwick, The Weaver of Odds

“As the Weaver, so is the Thread”
― Louise Blackwick, The Weaver of Odds

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
― Oscar Wilde

“I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best.”
― Marilyn Monroe

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
― Albert Einstein

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.”
― Bernard M. Baruch

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.”
― Dr. Seuss

“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”
― Mae West