02UndatedThis society doesn't work without booze – our parties aren't good enough, our conversations aren't sufficiently interesting, nor is our self-confidence high enough to sustain our interactions without alcohol. It's everywhere, lubricating everything.David Mitchell / quote ↗
03UndatedI would agree with your statement that many of my protagonists are outsiders. I wonder if we all are, and even people who don't think they are, and they're just better at masking it. When we shut our bedroom door at night, however well-integrated we think we are with the rest of society, maybe there's something illusory about that...David Mitchell / quote ↗
05UndatedAny society's upper-crust is riddled with immorality, how else d'you think they keep their power? Reputation is king of the public sphere, not private. It is dethroned by public acts.David Mitchell / quote ↗
06UndatedWhen I'm in doubt - as I am now - I ask myself, 'What would Carl Jung do?' - and act accordingly.David Mitchell / quote ↗
07UndatedSometimes I think that creativity is a matter of seeing, or stumbling over, unobvious similarities between things—like composing a fresh metaphor, but on a more complex scale. One night in Hiroshima it occurred to me that the moon behind a certain cloud formation looked very like a painkiller dissolving in a glass of water. I didn’t work toward that simile, it was simply there: I was mugged, as it were, by the similarity between these two very different things. Literary composition can be a similar process. The writer’s real world and the writer’s fictional world are compared, and these comparisons turned into text. But other times literary composition can be a plain old slog, and nothing to do with zones or inspiration. It’s world making and the peopling of those worlds, complete with time lines and heartache.David Mitchell / quote ↗
08UndatedBooks’ll be back,” Esther-in-Unalaq predicts. “Wait till the power grids start failing in the 2030s and the datavats get erased. It’s not far away. The future looks a lot like the past.David Mitchell / quote ↗
09UndatedThe Future,” says Ian, in a film-trailer voice. “Coming soon, to a Present near you.David Mitchell / quote ↗
10UndatedThe library refused many downloads, of course, but I succeeded with two Optimists translated from the Late English, Orwell and Huxley;David Mitchell / quote ↗
11UndatedSo little is actually worthy of belief or disbelief. Better to strive to coexist than seek to disapprove . . .David Mitchell / quote ↗
12UndatedScholars discern motions of history & formulate these motions into rules that govern the rises & falls of civilizations. My belief runs contrary, however. To wit: history admits no rules, only outcomes. What precipitates outcomes? Vicious acts and virtuous acts. What precipitates acts? Belief.David Mitchell / quote ↗
13UndatedBut you have read Madame Bovary?' (I'd never heard of her books.) 'No.David Mitchell / quote ↗
14UndatedThe art teacher's scarlet book was called Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille. 'As the title suggests,' Mr Dunwoody saw the book'd caught my attention, 'it's about the history of opticians. What are you about?David Mitchell / quote ↗
16UndatedI wish, he thinks, spoken words could be captured and kept in a locket.David Mitchell / quote ↗
17UndatedWords are what you fight with but what you fight about is whether or not you’re afraid of them.David Mitchell / quote ↗
18UndatedYou say you're 'depressed' - all i see is resilience. You are allowed to feel messed up and inside out. It doesn't mean you're defective - it just means you're human.David Mitchell / quote ↗
19UndatedPrayer may be a placebo for the disease of helplessness, but placebos can make you feel better.David Mitchell / quote ↗
20UndatedPretending”,' she looked at the garden, 'is not the truth.''But you said two true things, right ? One, you hate this girl. Two, you want her to feel better. If you decide that the wanting truth's more important than the hating truth, just tell her you've forgiven her, even if you haven't. At least she'd feel better. Maybe that'd make you feel better too.'Madame Crommelynck studied her hands, moodily, both sides. 'Sophistry', she pronounced. I'm not sure what 'sophistry' means so I kept shtum.David Mitchell / quote ↗
21UndatedI'd love to know how Dad saw me when I was 6. I'd love to know a hundred things. When a parent dies, a filing cabinet full of all the fascinating stuff also ceases to exist. I never imagined how hungry I'd be one day to look inside it.David Mitchell / quote ↗
22UndatedGrief is an amputation, but hope is incurable haemophilia: you bleed and bleed and bleed.David Mitchell / quote ↗
24UndatedIt's a very special talent that men have, to possess seeing eyes yet be so blind.David Mitchell / quote ↗
