The Destructives Quotes

“The soul dies like a star – by collapsing in on itself.”
― Matthew De Abaitua, The Destructives

“Surfaces are important,” he said. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking that answers can only be found in the depths of things. In their guts. Sometimes, what you are looking for is right there, written all over the face.”
― Matthew De Abaitua, The Destructives

“Take risks, succeed because of those risks:”
― Matthew De Abaitua, The Destructives

“Female status in Pre-Seizure culture was predicated on appetite control. But a woman in control of her desire did not function economically, and so loops were inserted into culture to accelerate female bonding in acts of over-consumption that defied restraint. These loops gave permission for loss of control. He loved the paradoxes of Pre-Seizure culture: on the one hand, building up an iconicity of self-control around images of thinness and athletic discipline, and on the other, unpicking that self-control to create necessary doubt and need. It must have been maddening to live through.”
― Matthew De Abaitua, The Destructives

“Patricia listened, deliberate and self-contained. Under the subtle terms of the meta-meeting, the pursing of her white lips was almost ostentatious. She placed her attention upon him in the same way that she might place her hand on the head of a small dog. She can’t be trusted. No, of course she couldn’t. But isn’t that thrilling – the presence of a grown-up, a player in the market, the alluring silences of power?”
― Matthew De Abaitua, The Destructives

“And yet, and yet… the cat yawned, eyes closed, and the twitching of its ears resumed. But they did not loop. Not right away. The cat’s data stream was ongoing, and it was a rich seam of data. For a quantified family, being able to slip on a sensesuit and experience what their cat had been up to that day was a selling point of the technology. The mother and daughter were hidden from him. But the cat – white whiskers, tiger-striping, green iris and sharp oval pupils – the cat was open source.”
― Matthew De Abaitua, The Destructives

“A quantified family would be upper middle class. Likely working in big tech,” said Theodore. “Their employers would have required it.” Piece by piece, the projectors filled in the available data on the house, including on the kitchen wall, a large screen of blurred graphs, smudged letters and numbers, all in motion. “This is the hearth,” he said. “The data flickering at the heart of the family. Location, activity, well-being.” He squinted at the screen. “Can you bring this into resolution?”
― Matthew De Abaitua, The Destructives

“Before he began destroying the stock, he was aware of no intention to do it. The only correlative to the impulse that he could think of – and this was a thought that occurred to him mid-act, as he hefted a three litre jar of psychofuel above his head, the top of his skull lifted off, holes drilled in his spine, anger playing him like a flute – was when he was a recidivist in his addictions, and would find himself honking up the grokk without really wanting it.”
― Matthew De Abaitua, The Destructives