01UndatedHolly rubs her temples. “Are we talking ... vampires?”Arkady groans. “On, the V-word! Here it comes again.David Mitchell / quote ↗
04UndatedPatience's design flaw became obvious for the first time in my life: the outcome is decided not during the course of play but when the cards are shuffled, before the game even begins. How pointless is that?David Mitchell / quote ↗
05UndatedWhat sparks wars? The will to power, the backbone of human nature. The threat of violence, the fear of violence, or actual violence, is the instrument of this dreadful will. You can see the will to power in bedrooms, kitchens, factories, unions and the borders of states. Listen to this and remember it. The nation state is merely human nature inflated to monstrous proportions. QED, nations are entities whose laws are written by violence. Thus it ever was, so ever shall it be.David Mitchell / quote ↗
08UndatedRight, my phone. When these things first appeared, they were so cool. Only when it was too late did people realize they are as cool as electronic tags on remand prisoners.David Mitchell / quote ↗
09UndatedI wonder who had the first computer dream, where, and when? I wonder if computers ever dream of humans.David Mitchell / quote ↗
11UndatedSnarling an oath from an Icelandic saga, I reclaimed my place at the head of the queue. "Oy!" yelled a punk rocker, with studs in his cranium. "There's a fackin' qDavid Mitchell / quote ↗
12UndatedAfter years of working with missionaries, I am tempted to conclude that their endeavors merely prolong a dying race's agonies for ten or twenty years. The merciful plowman shoots a trusty horse grown too old for service. As philanthropists, might it not be our duty to likewise ameliorate the savages' sufferings by hastening their extinction? Think of your Red Indians, Adam, think on the treaties you Americans abrogate & renege on, time & time & time again. More humane, surely & more honest, just to knock the savages on the head & get it over with?David Mitchell / quote ↗
13Undated& everywhere he observed that casual brutality lighter races show the darker.David Mitchell / quote ↗
14UndatedThis, explained the angel, is hell. The people do not love each other. They only want to feed themselves.David Mitchell / quote ↗
15UndatedThe downside is the fear.The fear of something happening to her, the pressure of there being two bodies in the world that I want to keep from harm and only being able to watchfully inhabit one of them. I wonder if you know what I mean.I hope you do for your sake.David Mitchell / quote ↗
16UndatedAnswering the question 'How would you like to smell?' by saying 'I'd rather I didn't' is also no longer acceptable. It's not playing the game. Men are expected to put some cash into the cosmetic pot too - it's seen as almost un-feminist not to. What a uniquely capitalist response to that gender inequality: women have been forced by convention for generations - millennia - to spend money on expensive clothes and agonising shoes, to daub themselves with reality-concealing slap, to smell expensively inhuman, to self-mutilate in pursuit of eternal youth; and this, quite rightly, has come to be deemed unfair. But how do we end this hell? We make men do it too. Well done everyone.David Mitchell / quote ↗
18UndatedBut to what end? Some... future revolution? It can never succeed.As Seneca warned Nero: No matter how many of us you kill, you will never kill your successor.David Mitchell / quote ↗
19UndatedHumans live in a pit of cheating, exploiting, hurting, incarcerating. Every time, the species wastes some part of what it could be. This waste is poisonous.David Mitchell / quote ↗
20UndatedA sprinkle of last-minute despair gives a soul an agreeably earthy aftertaste.David Mitchell / quote ↗
21UndatedSurgeons are a singular brotherhood, Adam. To us, people aren't sacred beings crafted in the Almighty's image, no, people are joints of meat; diseased, leathery meat, yes, but meat ready for the skewer & the spit." He mimicked my usual voice, very well. "'But why *me*, Henry, are we not friends?' Well, Adam, even friends are made out of meat.David Mitchell / quote ↗
22Undated... but it is attitude, not years, that condemns one to the ranks of the Undead, or else proffers salvation. In the domain of the young there dwells many an Undead soul. They rush about so, their inner putrefaction is concealed for a few decades, that is all.David Mitchell / quote ↗
23UndatedA single night is stuffed with minutes, but they leak out, one by one.David Mitchell / quote ↗
24UndatedSecrets affect you more than you’d think. You lie to keep them hidden. You steer talk away from them. You worry someone’ll discover yours and tell the world. You think you are in charge of the secret, but isn’t it the secret who’s actually using you?David Mitchell / quote ↗
