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ad878dc
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Thunder splits the rift where the Sun floods in.
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David Mitchell |
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ca71361
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Modesty is Vanity's craftier stepbrother.
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David Mitchell |
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dba6d7c
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Olly's glowing; if he was six inches tall and fluffy, Toys R Us would ship him by the thousands.
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glowing
toys-r-us
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David Mitchell |
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b9ad7a7
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Your power stations, your cars, your creature comforts. Well, you lived too long. The bill's due. Today.
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environmentalism
end-of-the-world
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David Mitchell |
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af5e658
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Every Adam needs an Eve.
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eve
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David Mitchell |
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45f40dd
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Never too late. Shooting is prayer. And when civilisation shuts up shop, a gun'll be worth any number of university degrees.
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university-degree
shop
gun
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David Mitchell |
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1554337
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That is more or less it. Middle age is flown, 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.
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David Mitchell |
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6092810
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Don't you ever have days when you're just so glad to be alive you want to" - he turns to me - "howl at the sun?"
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David Mitchell |
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8d01b76
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Holly steps back. Being warned about a ghost and seeing him are not the same. 'What did they
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metaphor
time
mortality
immortality
death
life
title
speech
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David Mitchell |
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ffa2745
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Cynicism can blind one to subtler virtues
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David Mitchell |
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22772ba
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Young mothers are the most vicious tribe in the world if you don't fit in.
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David Mitchell |
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2f4961d
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The most humiliating thing you can do to a man is to save his life.
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David Mitchell |
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749aa59
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Why's it okay to draw spaceships if you're seven, but not okay to draw diabolical mazes?
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spaceships
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David Mitchell |
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01bcc40
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And grade every simile and metaphor from one star to five, and remove any threes or below. It hurts when you operate, but afterwards you feel much better.
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writing
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David Mitchell |
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d08bea7
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Girls fascinate in different ways. Try 'em one day. Tapped on the pane, and asked in French if she'd save my life by falling in love with me.
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David Mitchell |
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651da69
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My heart's a clubbed baby seal.
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David Mitchell |
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912733d
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Most cities are nouns, but New York is a verb. What might Beunas Yerbas be, I wonder?' 'A string of adjectives and conjunctions?' 'Or an expletive?
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David Mitchell |
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bef7b0a
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Coupling is frenzy; decoupling is farce.
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decoupling
frenzy-farce
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David Mitchell |
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f4e313a
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People talk about the Endarkenment like our ancestors talked about the Black Death, as if it's an act of God. But we summoned it, with every tank of oil we burned our way through. My generation were diners stuffing ourselves senseless at the Restaurant of the Earth's Riches knowing--while denying--that we'd be doing a runner and leaving our grandchildren a tab that can never be paid.
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David Mitchell |
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1489a12
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Why's it okay to draw spaceships if you're seven, but not okay to draw diabolical mazes? Who decides that spending money on Space Invaders is fine, but if you buy a calculator with loads of symbols you're asking to be picked on? Why's it okay to listen to the Top 40 on Radio 1 but not okay to listen to stations in other languages?
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David Mitchell |
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76cb156
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Fear hardens caution, but boredom erodes it.
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David Mitchell |
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d7bbed0
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We are only what we know.
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David Mitchell |
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aefbd3c
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Mental maps. Maps with edges. And for Auden, for so many of us, it's the edges of the maps that fascinate...
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mental-maps
maps
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David Mitchell |
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d28777a
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Another example of their hatefulness while my dander's up: in order to get themselves off the hook of sometimes liking uncool things, they refer to them as 'guilty pleasures', which is a ridiculous expression. What? So you like Abba, or Roger Moore as James Bond, but have been led to believe that this taste is somehow infra dig, so you style it a 'guilty pleasure', thus demonstrating you're sufficiently relaxed and self-deprecating to own u..
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David Mitchell |
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b1b0824
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Power is lost or won, never created or destroyed. Power is a visitor to, not a possession of, those it empowers. The mad tend to crave it, many of the sane crave it, but the wise worry about its long-term side effects. Power is crack cocaine for your ego and battery acid for your soul.
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David Mitchell |
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f1aab6c
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I envy the God-intoxicated Boyces of the world. Prayer may be a placebo for the disease of helplessness, but placebos can make you feel better.
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David Mitchell |
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ee9956d
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contemplating that, while the wealthy are no more likely to be born stupid than the poor, a wealthy upbringing compounds stupidity while a hardscrabble childhood dilutes it, if only for Darwinian reasons. This is why the elite need a prophylactic barrier of shitty state schools, to prevent clever kids from working-class post codes ousting them from the Enclave of Privilege.
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David Mitchell |
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04a20f2
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Nothing attunes you to the beauty of the quotidian like a man who decides not to kill you after all
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quotidian
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David Mitchell |
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3d89901
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I am designing the future on beer mats, like Churchill and Stalin at Yalta.
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David Mitchell |
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cefe60a
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For White man, life is to own, or to try to own more, or to die trying to own more.
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David Mitchell |
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d98e9f5
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Some might think that acting all modest and yet feeling all megalomaniacal is dishonest. I say it's a cultural thing. And of course it's not megalomania (well, if it is, I'm the worst person to judge - just don't put me in charge of soldiers), it's just general high self-esteem. And it means that when I do have moments of self-loathing, I don't feel worthless but that I've let myself down - which implies that, even when feeling low, I still..
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David Mitchell |
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73b49b8
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If you've never been through it, you can't understand it, not really. Lucky you, I say. Control is about fear, see. If you're afraid of the reprisals, you don't say no, you don't fight back, you don't run away. Saying yes is how you survive. It becomes normal. Horrible, but normal. Horrible, because it's normal. Now, lucky you can say, 'Not standing up to him is giving him permission,' but if you've been fed this diet since the year dot, th..
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David Mitchell |
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a905200
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Her professional conscience is a collar. I hold the leash.
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David Mitchell |
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3637943
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I can't blame them. I would have stared at me, too.
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David Mitchell |
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02a0dea
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De wereld is al wankel genoeg
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David Mitchell |
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b2e147c
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Deeper'n that it's this. The savage sat'fies his needs now. He's hungry, he'll eat. He's angry, he'll knuckly. He's swellin', he'll shoot up a woman. His master is his will, an' if his will say-soes "Kill" he'll kill. Like fangy animals. Yay, that was the Kona. Now the Civ'lized got the same needs too, but he sees further. He'll eat half his food now, yay, but plant half so he won't go hungry 'morrow. He's angry, he'll stop'n' think why so ..
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David Mitchell |
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464fa70
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Time is the speed at which the past decays, but disneys enable a brief resurrection.
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David Mitchell |
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99409be
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When you die, your soul crosses the Dusk between life and the Blank Sea. The journey takes forty-nine days,
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David Mitchell |
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f601a77
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Sixsmith, Eva. Because her name is a synonym for temptation: what treads nearer to the core of man? Because her soul swims in her eyes. Because I dream of creeping through the velvet folds to her room, where I let myself in, hum her a tune so-so-so softly, she stands with her naked feet on mine, her ear to my heart, and we waltz like string puppets. After that kiss, she says, "Vous embrassez comme un poisson rouge!" and in moonlight mirrors..
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David Mitchell |
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4855737
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She didn't tell me to use a condom, so I didn't: a bit of a risk, but it's her risk, not mine,
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David Mitchell |
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341d7c2
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I wish, he thinks, spoken words could be captured and kept in a locket.
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David Mitchell |
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5b9b86f
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The river's vowels and the trees' consonants speak a not-quite-foreign language.
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David Mitchell |
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ec3ba6d
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Taking it all the way to a disciplinary procedure and talking to a national newspaper is the mark of an unusual man. But is he principled or just stubborn? Righteous or self-righteous? Would it be a better world if everyone was like him? God, no! It would be a much better world if no one was. The only useful role for people like that is to stand up to each other. You need the unbending Churchills to save us from the mass-murdering Hitlers b..
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David Mitchell |
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23e76d5
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In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul; for the human species, selfishness is extinction. Is this the doom written within our nature? If we believe that humanity may transcend tooth & claw, if we believe divers races & creeds can share this world as peaceably as the orphans share their candlenut tree, if we believe leaders must be just, violence muzzled, power accountable & the riches of the Earth & its Oceans shared equitably, suc..
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David Mitchell |