Isaac Marion Quotes & Sayings

There is no ideal world for you to wait around for. The world is always just what it is now, and it's up to you how you respond to it. — Isaac Marion

But it does make me sad that we've forgotten our names. Out of everything, this seems to me the most tragic. I miss my own and I mourn for everyone else's, because I'd like to love them, but I don't know who they are. — Isaac Marion

Sex, once a law as undisputed as gravity, has been disproved. The equation is erased, the blackboard broken — Isaac Marion

God damn it you asshole! Wake up or I'll fucking shoot you! — Isaac Marion

We smelted our ideals under great heat and pressure until the soft parts burned away, and what emerged was a tempered frame rigid enough to endure the cruel world we'd created. — Isaac Marion

Maybe this is why I sleep only a few hours a month. I don't want to die again. This has become clearer and clearer to me recently, a desire so sharp and focused I can hardly believe it's mine: I don't want to die. I don't want to disappear. I want to stay. — Isaac Marion

He is spent. His mind is mercury again, its brief surge of humanity melting into an oily residue on its surface, and he no longer understands the feelings he felt in that strange moment on the overpass.
But he did feel them. They did happen. They rest on the murky seabed of his mind, buried under sand and silt and miles of grey waves. Patient seeds waiting for light. — Isaac Marion

Suddenly exhausted, she closes her eyes and slips into nightmares again. Graveyards rising out of the ocean. Her friends' corpses in the light of their burning school. Skeletons ripping open men's chests and crawling inside. She endures it patiently, waiting for the horror film to end and the theater to go dark, those precious few hours of blackout that are her only respite. — Isaac Marion

I have no answer for her. But I look into her face, her pale cheeks, her red lips bright with life and tender as an infant's, and I understand that I love her. And if she is everything, maybe that's — Isaac Marion

My favorite songs change every year. — Isaac Marion

My mind has cleared a little; I've regained some instincts and associations, echoes of the Living world if not actual memories. Those I still have to steal. — Isaac Marion

Stop shrugging, shrugger. — Isaac Marion

In front of a big aluminum building with a plywood cross on the roof, I kneel in a puddle and splash water on my face. I wash my mouth out with dirty gutter runoff and spit until I can't taste anything. That holy wooden "t" looms overhead, and I wonder if the Lord might ever find cause to approve of me, wherever and whatever he is.
Have you met him yet, Perry? Is he alive and well? Tell me he's not just the mouth of the sky. Tell me there's more looking down on us than that empty blue skull. — Isaac Marion

I think the world has mostly ended because the cities we wander through are as rotten as we are. Buildings have collapsed. Rusted cars clog the streets. Most glass is shattered and the wind drifting through the hollow high-rises moans like an animal left to die. I don't know what happened. Disease? War? Social collapse? Or was it just us? The Dead replacing the Living? I guess it's not so important. Once you're arrived at the end of the world, it hardly matters which road you took. — Isaac Marion

We eat and sleep and shuffle through the fog, walking a marathon with no finish line, no medals, no cheering. — Isaac Marion

It's rare that I read more than two or three books by any one author; usually only one. — Isaac Marion

That's why we have memory. And the opposite of memory - hope. So things that are gone can still matter. So we can built off our pasts and make future. — Isaac Marion

This female and I have fallen in love — Isaac Marion

It frustrates and fascinates me that we'll never know for sure, that despite the best efforts of historians and scientists and poets, there are some things we'll just never know. What the first song sounded like. How it felt to see the first photograph. Who kissed the first kiss, and if it was any good. — Isaac Marion

We knew it was all wrong. We knew we were diminishing ourselves in ways we couldn't even name, and we wept sometimes at memories of better days, but we no longer saw a choice. We were doing our best to survive. The equations at the roots of our problems were complex, and we were far too exhausted to solve them. — Isaac Marion

Every experience, good or bad, is a priceless collector's item. — Isaac Marion

I sigh inside, so exhausted by these ugly questions, but when did a monster ever deserve its privacy? — Isaac Marion

We are where we are, however we got here. What matters is where we go next. — Isaac Marion

I'm watching her talk. Watching her jaw move and collecting her words one by one as they spill from her lips. I don't deserve them. Her warm memories. I'd like to paint them over the bare plaster walls of my soul, but everything I paint seems to peel. — Isaac Marion

I wish people were willing to dig a little deeper than the surface elements of a premise before tossing one story in with another. — Isaac Marion

Has your life gone on long after the thrill of living is gone? Are the dreams in which you're dying the best you've ever had? — Isaac Marion

Once you've arrived at the end of the world, it hardly matters which route you took. — Isaac Marion

What I'm saying is, when you have weight like that in your life, you have to start looking for the bigger picture or you are gonna sink. — Isaac Marion

You might say that death has relaxed me. — Isaac Marion

When the entire world is built on death and horror, when existence is a constant state of panic, it's hard to get worked up about any one thing. Specific fears have become irrelevant. We've replace them with a smothering blanket far worse. — Isaac Marion

I'm a cell in the cancer that killed her. — Isaac Marion

Now here is an oddity. A question for the zombie philosophers. What does it mean that my past is a fog but my present is brilliant, bursting with sound and color? Since I became Dead I've recorded new memories with the fidelity of an old cassette deck, faint and muffled and ultimately forgettable. But I can recall every hour of the last few days in vivid detail, and the thought of losing a single one horrifies me. Where am I getting this focus? This clarity? I can trace a solid line from the moment I met Julie all the way to now, lying next to her in this sepulchral bedroom, and despite the millions of past moments I've lost or tossed away like highway trash, I know with a lockjawed certainty I'll remember this one for the rest of my life. — Isaac Marion

I run through the dark entry corridor toward the light on the other end, wondering if this is a birth canal or the tunnel to Heaven. Am I coming or going? Either way, it's too late to reverse. Hidden in the gloom under a red evening sky, I step into the world of the Living. — Isaac Marion

I remember what love was like before There were complex emotional and biological factors at work. We had elaborate tests to pass, connections to forge, ups and downs and tears and whirlwinds. It was an ordeal, an exercise in agony, but it was alive. The new love is simpler. Easier. But small. — Isaac Marion

hierarchies are lies. Because no one needs the alpha. He gets to the top by puffing and bluffing until we all believe he belongs there. When your power is built on ignorance, you don't want people talking to each other. — Isaac Marion

I mean obviously, staying alive is pretty fucking important . . . but there's got to be something beyond that, right? — Isaac Marion

And yet ...
But what if ...
I want to do something impossible. Something astounding and unheard of. I want to scrub the moss off the Space Shuttle and fly Julie to the moon and colonise it, or float a capsized cruise ship to some distant island where no one will protest us, or just harness the magic that brings me into the brains of the Living and use it to bring Julie into mine, because it's warm in here, it's quiet and lovely, and in here we aren't an absurd juxtaposition, we are perfect. — Isaac Marion

Everything dies eventually. We all know that. People, cities, whole civilations. Nothing lasts. So if existence was just binary, dead or alive, here or not here, what would be the fucking point in anything? — Isaac Marion

What, you don't eat fat people?'
'Fat ... not alive. Waste product. Need meet. — Isaac Marion

It's not about keeping up the population, it's about passing on who we are and what we've learned, so things keep going. So we don't just end. — Isaac Marion

The sports arena Julie calls home is unaccountably large, perhaps one of those dual-event 'super venues' built for an era when the greatest quandary facing the world was where to put all the parties. — Isaac Marion

Sometimes it's a struggle to live in the moment. — Isaac Marion

There's no rule book for the world. It's in our heads, our collective human hive-mind. If there are rules, we're the ones making them. We can change them whenever we want. — Isaac Marion

I've always been interested in writing from the perspective of an outsider. — Isaac Marion

SS: How would you describe your life in only 8 words?
IM: So, so, so, so, so, so, so awesome. — Isaac Marion

This was the final weight that broke my mind's kneecaps. — Isaac Marion

The Living do everything so vibrantly, the Dead think. Their blood sprays like party champagne, they hoot and howl like a gospel choir. Even in their agony, they are enviable. — Isaac Marion

She liked to keep her scent a mystery — Isaac Marion

I'm sorry I can't properly introduce myself, but I don't have a name anymore. Hardly any of us do. We lose them like car keys, forget them like anniversaries. — Isaac Marion

This plague ... This curse ... I have an idea where it came from. I don't think it's from any spell or virus or nuclear rays. I think it's from a deeper place. I think we brought it here. I think we crushed ourselves down over the centuries. Buried ourselves under greed and hate and whatever other sins we could find until our souls finally hit the rock bottom of the universe. And then they scraped a hole through it, into some ... dark place. We released it. We poked through the seabed and the oil erupted, painted us black, pulled our inner sickness out for everyone to see. Now here we are in this dry corpse of a world, rotting on our feet till there's nothing left but bones and the buzz of flies. — Isaac Marion

We cast out votes and raised our leaders, charming men and women with white teeth and silver tongues, and we shoved our many hopes and fears into their hands, believing those hands were strong because they had firm handshakes. They failed us, always. There was no way they could not fail us
they were human, and more importantly, so were we. — Isaac Marion

You and I are victims of the same disease. We're fighting the same war, just different battles in different theaters, and it's way too late for me to hate you for anything, because we're the same damn thing. My soul, your conscience, whatever's left of me woven into whatever's left of you, all tangled up and conjoined. We're in this together, corpse. — Isaac Marion

The sun goes down and my headlights bathe the trees and bushes. What's behind the Cascade Mountains? Winthrop. Bridgeport. The Grand Coulee Dam. But how do I know this? I've seen maps and globes and books and films, images inked on paper an shot in studios by people I've never met, but how do I know for sure anything I haven't seen? Anyplace I've never been?
What if everyone's just pretending? What if the world is still unknown? — Isaac Marion

Enough white lies can scorch the earth black. — Isaac Marion

How do I appear unthreatening when her lover's blood is running down my chin? — Isaac Marion

I know from grim experience that there is a beauty to her inner layers, too. Marvels of symmetry and craftsmanship sealed away inside her like the jewelled movements of a timepiece, fine works of art never meant to be seen. — Isaac Marion

After finishing my drink I feel a pressure in my lower regions, and I realize I have to piss. Since the Dead don't drink, urination is a rare event. I hope I can remember how to do it. — Isaac Marion

All my life I have battled the alarm clock, pummeling the snooze button over and over with mounting self-loathing until the shame is finally strong enough to lever me upright. — Isaac Marion

Every time I go to sleep, I know I may never wake up. How could anyone expect to? You drop your tiny, helpless mind into a bottomless well, crossing your fingers and hoping when you pull it out on its flimsy fishing wire it hasn't been gnawed to bones by nameless beasts below. — Isaac Marion

Marie keeps asking for books about zombies and I keep telling her I can't read nonfiction for story time, but . . — Isaac Marion

It's more eerie to be alone in a city that's lit up and functioning than one that's a tomb. If everything were silent, one could almost pretend to be in nature. A forest. A meadow. Crickets and birdsong. But the corpse of civilization is as restless as the creatures that now roam the graveyards. — Isaac Marion

Her life has seen little light. She is twelve years old but has a woman's weathered poise. Her abyss-blue eyes have a piercing focus that some adults find unsettling. [ ... ] She has fired a gun into a human head. She has watched a pile of bodies set alight. She has starved and thirsted, stolen food and given it away, and glimpsed the meaning of life by watching it end over and over. — Isaac Marion

I feel the flatline of my existence disrupting, forming heartbeat hills and valleys — Isaac Marion

Mozart," Julie says in a bitter chuckle, staring at the speaker. "It's supposed to be the pinnacle of art, right? This transcendent human achievement? And we use it for background noise in bathrooms. We literally shit on it. — Isaac Marion

It's hard to take your life so seriously when you can see it all at once. — Isaac Marion

I crush her against me. I want to be part of her. Not just inside her but all around her. I want our rib cages to crack open and our hearts to migrate and merge. I want our cells to braid together like living thread. — Isaac Marion

If there are rules, we're the ones making them. We can change them whenever we want to. — Isaac Marion

The Dead are a larger army than any ever assembled, and they follow no leader, fear no threat, and accept no bribe or compromise. The Dead are the silent majority, and should they ever decide to say something, it will be the new law of the land. — Isaac Marion

We sit against the tiles of the bathroom wall with our legs sprawled out in front of us, passing the brain back and forth, taking small, leisurely bites and enjoying brief flashes of human experience.
'Good ... shit,' M wheezes. — Isaac Marion

Believe that God discarded you if you want to, fate or destiny or whatever, but at least know they loved you ... — Isaac Marion

There on the hot white roof of humanity's last outpost, we look out over our rapidly, hopelessly, irretrievably changing world, and we sing: Nothing's gonna change my world. Nothing's gonna change my world. — Isaac Marion

I finally drift back to sleep. I'm in the darkness. The molecules of my mind are still scattered, and I float through oily black space, trying to swipe them up like fireflies. Every time I go to sleep, I know I may never wake up. How could anyone expect to? You drop your tiny, helpless mind into a bottomless well, crossing your fingers and hoping that when you pull it out on its flimsy fishing wire it hasn't been gnawed to bones by nameless beasts below. Hoping you pull up anything at all. — Isaac Marion

We tried to make a beautiful world here, the voices mumble. There were those who saw the end of civilization as an opportunity to start over, to undo the errors of history
to relive mankind's awkward adolescence with all the wisdom of our modern age. But everything was happening so fast. — Isaac Marion

Breathing is optional, but I need some air. — Isaac Marion

Good people care more about people than food. They try to help people and don't give up even when they get hungry. Only bad people give up. But good people fix things. Good people stay good even when it's hard to. Even if they're sick or sad or they have to lose their favorite stuff. Even if they have to die. Good people see past their own fucking lives. They aren't just hunger and math. They aren't just animals. Good people are part of the Higher, good people are fuel for the sun. — Isaac Marion

I don't know ... there's something kind of beautiful about it, don't you think? That we keep living and growing even though our world is a corpse? That we keep coming back no matter how many of us die? — Isaac Marion

There is a chasm between me and the world outside of me. A gap so wide my feelings can't cross it. By the time my screams reach the other side, they have dwindled into groans. — Isaac Marion

We're fumbling in the dark, but at least we're in motion. — Isaac Marion

Why is it beautiful that humanity keeps coming back? So does herpes. — Isaac Marion

I have begun to wonder where I came from. The person I am now, this fumbling, stumbling supplicant ... was I built on the foundations of my old life, or did I rise from the grave a blank state? How much of me is inherited, and how much is my own creation? Questions that were once just idle musings have begun to feel strangely urgent. Am I firmly rooted to what came before? Or can I choose to deviate? — Isaac Marion

What's wrong with people?" she says, almost too quiet for me to hear. "Were they born with parts missing or did it fall out somewhere along the way? — Isaac Marion

Miracles don't exist. There is cause and effect, dreams and reality. Living and Dead. Your hope is absurd. Your romanticism, embarrassing — Isaac Marion

It's not like I'm such a shiny happy person either, you know? I'm a wreck too, I'm just ... still alive. — Isaac Marion

I steal what he has to replace what I lack. — Isaac Marion

Is equally young and foolish in the wide lens of history, and the arrogant denial of this is what unraveled the world. — Isaac Marion

Once again the absurdity of my inner thoughts overwhelms me, and I want to crawl out of my skin, escape my ugly, awkward flesh and be a skeleton, naked and anonymous. — Isaac Marion

I assumed it was perfect, that everyone was happy and beautiful and wanted for nothing, and in my numb, limited way I felt envy and wanted to eat them all the more — Isaac Marion

You know things are moving. You're changing, you fellow Dead are changing, the world is ready for something miraculous. What are we waiting for? — Isaac Marion

The knowledge feels grotesque in my mind but I grasp it and hold it tight, etching it deep into my memory. Why am I doing this? Why do I want to know the names and functions of all the beautiful structures I've spent my years violating? Because I don't deserve to keep them anonymous. I want the pain of knowing them and by extension myself: who and what I really am. — Isaac Marion

The windows are empty holes lined with glass teeth. — Isaac Marion

It's a strange feeling, being so utterly surrounded by her. Her life scent is on everything. She's on me and under me and next to me. It's as if the entire room is made out of her. — Isaac Marion

It was fun, but it's over now. This is how things go. — Isaac Marion

You can order yourself to treasure a moment, to cling tight to a feeling and never let it fade, but it's your brain, that three-pound lump of hamburger, that makes the final call. — Isaac Marion

Good people see past their own fucking lives. — Isaac Marion

I want a new past,new memories, a new first handshake with love. I want to start over in every possible way. — Isaac Marion

Are my words ever actually audible, or do they just echo in my head while people stare at me, waiting? — Isaac Marion

Life is only fair for the Dead, who get what they want because they want nothing. — Isaac Marion

I feel an unfamiliar but pleasant sensation in my lips, tugging them upward. This is ... new. — Isaac Marion

Some part of me remembers what snow is, but this is the first time my new mind has seen it. It softens the crumbled sidewalks and turns rusty rooftops white. It's beautiful. It crunches under my feet as I move toward the house, longing to understand. — Isaac Marion

Our cadaverous cadre has been walking for little over a day ... — Isaac Marion