Neon Leviathan Quotes

“He felt the city reach out and embrace him with its vast indifference.”
― T.R. Napper, Neon Leviathan

“This city runs over with ghosts and neon gods.”
― T.R. Napper, Neon Leviathan

“This law is immutable. The user always pays.”
― T.R. Napper, Neon Leviathan

“...memories are not just for the individual. They make up our collective consciousness. They are a common resource that teaches us who we are and how to be.”
― T.R. Napper, Neon Leviathan

“When our decision-making is nurtured by corporate algorithm, when so many of our experiences are their simulations of experience, when we’ve outsourced our memories to be stored and filed away, by them. When our every moment is sampled, deconstructed, and built back into Trojans—advertising, architecture, news reports—that reformat our lives. How can we exist, then, when we’re someone else’s dream? They create these cities, Jack, and cities are huge external memory devices. But the memories are not ours, always those of others.”
― T.R. Napper, Neon Leviathan

“Districts protected by law, by drone, by truncheon, and by thirty-dollar lattes.”
― T.R. Napper, Neon Leviathan

“They create the spaces within which we live our lives, moulding us to fit into the places they define—public or private, park or car park. We are created and re-created by our spaces. It’s a constant feedback loop. Space shapes behaviour—what you can do in it, what you can’t. It’s identity. Here, we can exist, in a space not fully imaged, but once their minds return to this place, we will be gone.”
― T.R. Napper, Neon Leviathan

“Lastly, I’ll give you a tear gas grenade A tear gland for this modern epoch A type of tear neither sad nor happy Drenching my face as I wait. Tran Da Tu, Saigon, 1964”
― T.R. Napper, Neon Leviathan

“Listen,” said Aurora, hands up, like a policeman halting traffic. “Everyone stop saying cat.” The men went silent. Aurora took a deep breath. “Do you know why we have the Australia Cards? The universal basic income?” “Dunno,” said Jack. “Charity, I suppose.” “Yes,” said Minh. “Why?” “Well—you ever notice the biggest supporters of a universal wage aren’t charities or churches?” “Nah,” said Tommy. “It’s those rich bastards.” “Exactly. Silicon Valley. The banks. You know why? They need customers for the businesses they own, and they own bloody everything. They need our disposable income. But there’s no jobs anymore, the automation they invented took them all. Forty percent unemployment, half the rest working part-time gigs. So: they lobbied the government to give out free money.”
― T.R. Napper, Neon Leviathan

“All souls needs communion, even the old and bitter ones. These, most of all.”
― T.R. Napper, Neon Leviathan

“– (image) green halo, hovering above my head –  / – (voice): desuetude, decline of neural pathways. Everything we’ve always wanted – / – (image) the bright blue-glowing logo of Baosteel – / (image) man in an expensive suit holding a purple pill between thumb and forefinger –”
― T.R. Napper, Neon Leviathan

“...inside a silver cage hung from the ceiling, a yellow bird sang, oblivious.”
― T.R. Napper, Neon Leviathan

“You don’t need to save the world, Kindred. You just need to save yourself.”
― T.R. Napper, Neon Leviathan

“I couldn’t distinguish between playing the slots and dreaming about them. What was real, what was imagined.”
― T.R. Napper, Neon Leviathan

“I treated a man who was there when Kiribati went under. A whole nation, wiped from the face of the Earth.” “Shouldn’t we remember that?” The doctor tilted her head at him. “What do you mean?” “Shouldn’t we bear witness to that loss?”
― T.R. Napper, Neon Leviathan

“There’s no contemplation, no quiet choices,” Col continued. “No place to be alone, even in our own heads. We are a product of the freewave. The single most important product. Every moment we use it we contribute to the knowledge of the mega-corps. Monetizing our data, freely, willingly giving them the information they need to perfect their control.”
― T.R. Napper, Neon Leviathan