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b9b7c82
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Revolting' was the last word I ever spoke as someone who'd never kissed a girl.
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relationships
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David Mitchell |
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8ccf218
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Nonfiction that smells like fiction is neither.
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non-fiction
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David Mitchell |
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f41329f
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When a parent dies, a filing cabinet full of all the fascinating stuff also ceases to exist.
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David Mitchell |
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aa1a593
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Anticipating the end of the world is humanity's oldest pastime.
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David Mitchell |
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92f5545
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we cross, crisscross, and recross our old tracks like figure skaters.
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David Mitchell |
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be18029
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If you'd cured Henry the Seventh's TB with a course of ethambutol, or given Isaac Newton an hour's access to the Hubble telescope, or shown an off-the-shelf 3-D printer to the regulars at the Captain Marlow in the 1980s, you would have had the M-word thrown your way, too. Some magic is merely normality that you're not yet used to.
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David Mitchell |
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07d3208
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Prayer may be a placebo for the disease of helplessness, but placebos can make you feel better.
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prayer
religion
placebo
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David Mitchell |
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9c72240
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That's the weird part: I know I don't know you. So how come I feel like I do?
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David Mitchell |
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40f792d
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Attaining immortality is easier than controlling its terms and conditions.
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David Mitchell |
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13e85b4
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Mortality is inscribed in your cellular structure, and you say you're not ill? Look at the painting. Look at it." She nods towards The Adoration of the Magi. I obey. I always will. "Thirteen subjects, if you count them, like the Last Supper. Shepherds, the Magi, the relatives. Study their faces, one by one. Who believes this newborn manikin can one day conquer death? Who wants proof? Who suspects the Messiah is a false prophet? Who knows th..
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David Mitchell |
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c8a099c
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If consumers found fulfillment at any meaningful level, she extemporized, corpocracy would be finished.
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contentment
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David Mitchell |
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c05a29f
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Orito pictures the human mind as a loom that weaves disparate threads of belief, memory and narrative into an entity whose common name is Self, and which sometimes calls itself Perception.
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David Mitchell |
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759a62c
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The wheel of seasons is broken, says the spring pattern this autumn day, and so am I.
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David Mitchell |
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837fc03
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that human hunger birthed the Civ'lize, but human hunger killed it too.
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human
inspirational
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David Mitchell |
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cbecc87
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I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, And out of the caverns of rain, Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, I arise and unbuild it again.
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David Mitchell |
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b86924f
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A wrongheaded world," sighed Shiloh Davydov, "where women needs must deny their gender for fear that their ideas will be dismissed."
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David Mitchell |
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6c7216c
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Perfume counters in department stores, Holly Deblin smells of, the middle of July, and cinnamon Tic Tacs.
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lovers
love
young-lovers
young-love
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David Mitchell |
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1e83e25
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I managed to smile, thinking how Modesty is Vanity's craftier stepbrother.
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David Mitchell |
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b1b1e15
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Yet what are we without our addictions? Insipid. Flavourless.
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David Mitchell |
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9d0e66d
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Our right to be here is weaker by the minute.
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David Mitchell |
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5d09e3b
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Do we use the L-word because we mean it, or because we want to kid ourselves into thinking we're still in that blissful state?
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David Mitchell |
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a035924
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But the paranormal is persuasive; why else does religion persist?
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David Mitchell |
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370693b
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Hesitations're yeses or nos if the questioner already knows the answer.
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David Mitchell |
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c9a208a
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These...xistential qualms you suffer, they just mean you're truly human. I aked how I might remedy them. "You don't remedy them. You live thru them."
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stoicism
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David Mitchell |
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c11b66d
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Laboring types surrounded me with bad teeth, parrot voices, and unfounded optimism.
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David Mitchell |
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ef44bb3
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Grin and bear it! Remember your heritage! You're a Japanese law-abiding straight! You grin and bear it until your Zimmer frame buckles and your drinking water is mercury oxide, and our whole country is one coast-to-coast parking lot.
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david mitchell |
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eb0e5f6
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Your employers evince great faith in your talents, Mr Ewing, to entrust you with business neccessitating such a long & arduous voyage." I replied that, yes, I was a senior enough notary to be entrusted with my present assignment, but a junior enough scrivener to be obligated to accept the same."
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David Mitchell |
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c577cc3
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Yet the way men live is so far removed from the way they ought to live that anyone who abandons what 'is' for what 'should be' pursues his downfall rather than his preservation;
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David Mitchell |
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80ce52c
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There's no future in stories...Stories are things of the past, things for museums.
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stories
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David Mitchell |
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8838436
|
Your leaders must know powerful magic. Yes, said one of the women. The magic is called Marx, Stalin, Lenin and Class Dialectics. It didn't sound like very powerful magic to me.
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marxism
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David Mitchell |
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92ad060
|
A rocker rose like Poseidon and flexed his knuckles.
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David Mitchell |
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3a71015
|
Our will to power, our science, and those v. faculties that elevated us from apes, to savages, to modern man, are the same faculties that'll snuff out Homo sapiens before this century is out!
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David Mitchell |
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646950e
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Love's a dictator. I know this, yet the blast furnace in my ribcage roars You You You You You You just the same, and there's bugger-all I can do about it.
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David Mitchell |
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25cabb0
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Today's the day I either change my life or I don't.
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David Mitchell |
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e935ade
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Speak to me about power. What is it?" I do believe I'm being out-Cambridged. "You want me to discuss power? Right here and now?" Her shapely head tilts. "No time except the present." "Okay." Only for a ten. "Power is the ability to make someone do what they otherwise wouldn't, or deter them from doing what they otherwise would." Immaculee Constantin is unreadable. "How?" "By coercion and reward. Carrots and sticks, though in bad light ..
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David Mitchell |
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c9f65fe
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Temple of the Rat King. Ark of the Soot God. Sphincter of Hades. Yes, King's Cross Station, where, according to , a blow job costs only five quid - any of the furthest-left three cubicles in the men's lavvy downstairs, twenty-four hours a day.
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trains
prostitution
london
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David Mitchell |
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e3ef664
|
love is fusion in the sun's core. Love is a blurring of pronouns. Love is subject and object. The difference between its presence and its absence is the difference between life and death.
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David Mitchell |
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858c11d
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Linda shares her packet of Custard Creams with me, and Marion says "Picking is hungry work" in her bunged up voice, and I say, "Yeah, it is, Marion," and Marion's really happy, and I wish her life could be easier than it's going to be."
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David Mitchell |
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f7cd6b8
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Human beings are walking bundles of cravings. Cravings for food, water, shelter, warmth; sex and companionship; status, a tribe to belong to; kicks, control, purpose; and so on, all the way down toe chocolate-brown bathroom suites. Love is one way to satisfy some of these cravings. But love's not just the drug; it's also the dealer. Love wants love in return. Like drugs, the highs look divine, and I envy the users. But when the side effects..
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David Mitchell |
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2fb90c3
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Two thoughts walked into my place. The first thought said that we hadn't slept together because sex would have closed an entrance behind us and opened an exit ahead of us. The second thought told me quite clearly what to do. Maybe Takeshi's wife was right--maybe it is unsafe to base an important decision on your feelings for a person. Takeshi says the same thing often enough. Every bonk, he says, quadruples in price by the morning after. Bu..
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David Mitchell |
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fdc084c
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How lazily "xperts" dismiss what they fail to understand! I,"
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David Mitchell |
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39b9070
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I loved Vinny like he was a part of me, and he loved me like a stick of gum. He'd spat me out when the flavor went, unwrapped another, and stuffed it in, and not just anyone, but Stella Yearwood. My best mate.
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David Mitchell |
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48101cc
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The present is a battleground . . . where rival what-ifs compete to become the future 'what-is.' How does one what-if prevail over its adversaries? The answer . . . 'Military and political power, of course!' is a postponement, for what is it that directs the minds of the powerful? The answer is 'belief.' Beliefs that are ignoble or idealistic; democratic or Confucian; Occidental or Oriental; timid or bold; clearsighted or delusional. Power ..
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power
|
David Mitchell |
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e047f58
|
But Ed Brubeck's a guy, like Vinny's a guy, and guys are all sperm-guns.
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David Mitchell |