|
33aa93a
|
Writing is such a damn lonely sickness.
|
|
|
David Mitchell |
|
6c9d9b8
|
It's a small world. It keeps recrossing itself.
|
|
|
David Mitchell |
|
b042240
|
I put my hand on the altar rail. 'What if ... what if Heaven is real, but only in moments? Like a glass of water on a hot day when you're dying of thirst, or when someone's nice to you for no reason, or ...' Mam's pancakes with Toblerone sauce; Dad dashing up from the bar just to tell me, 'Sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite'; or Jacko and Sharon singing 'For She's A Squishy Marshmallow' instead of 'For She's A Jolly Good Fellow' every ..
|
|
heaven
|
David Mitchell |
|
43ccb8c
|
Gulls wheel through spokes of sunlight over gracious roofs and dowdy thatch, snatching entrails at the marketplace and escaping over cloistered gardens, spike topped walls and treble-bolted doors. Gulls alight on whitewashed gables, creaking pagodas and dung-ripe stables; circle over towers and cavernous bells and over hidden squares where urns of urine sit by covered wells, watched by mule-drivers, mules and wolf-snouted dogs, ignored by h..
|
|
|
David Mitchell |
|
75eb556
|
Finished in a frenzy that reminded me of our last night in Cambridge. Watched my final sunrise. Enjoyed a last cigarette. Didn't think the view could be any more perfect until I saw that beat-up trilby. Honestly, Sixsmith, as ridiculous as that thing makes you look, I don't believe I've ever seen anything more beautiful. Watched you for as long as I dared. I don't believe it was a fluke that I saw you first. I believe there is another world..
|
|
lovers
love
love-letter
suicide-note
|
David Mitchell |
|
9cd37d9
|
Dreams are shores where the ocean of spirit meets the land of matter. Dreams are beaches where the yet-to-be, the once-were, the will-never-be may walk awhile with the still are.
|
|
inspirational
|
David Mitchell |
|
d4c9b7e
|
Being born's a hell of a lottery.
|
|
|
David Mitchell |
|
6ccdf5d
|
Why does any martyr cooperate with his judases?...We see a game beyond the endgame...As Seneca warned Nero: No matter how many of us you kill, you will never kill your successor.
|
|
|
David Mitchell |
|
85d0a6f
|
If we believe that humanity may transcend tooth and 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, such a world will come to pass.
|
|
|
David Mitchell |
|
da31392
|
Lying's wrong, but when the world spins backwards, a small wrong may be a big right.
|
|
wrong
right
|
David Mitchell |
|
84dbbc5
|
Faith, the least exclusive club on Earth, has the craftiest doorman. Every time I've stepped through its wide-open doorway, I find myself stepping out on the street again.
|
|
|
David Mitchell |
|
5aa8a24
|
Why fight the 'natural' (oh, weaselly word!) order of things? Why? Because of this--one fine day, a purely predatory world shall consume itself. In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul; for the human species, selfishness is extinction.
|
|
|
David Mitchell |
|
6d15777
|
People are icebergs, with just a bit you can see and loads you can't.
|
|
|
David Mitchell |
|
0e75f4f
|
As many truths as men. Occasionally, I glimpse a truer Truth, hiding in imperfect simulacrums of itself, but as I approach, it bestirs itself & moves deeper into the thorny swamp of dissent.
|
|
|
David Mitchell |
|
5561a6e
|
Integrity is a bugger, it really is. Lying can get you into difficulties, but to really wind up in the crappers try telling nothing but the truth.
|
|
lying
truth
|
David Mitchell |
|
f8c8a11
|
People are obscenities. Would rather be music than be a mass of tubes squeezing semisolids around itself for a few decades before becoming so dribblesome it'll no longer function.
|
|
|
David Mitchell |
|
cfe2ad2
|
in a cycle as old as tribalism, ignorance of the Other engenders fear; fear engenders hatred; hatred engenders violence; violence engenders further violence until the only "rights", the only law, are whatever is willed by the most powerful." --
|
|
hatred
violence
ignorance
power
|
David Mitchell |
|
4191e14
|
The weak are meat the strong do eat.
|
|
|
David Mitchell |
|
c13d7db
|
Grief is an amputation, but hope is incurable haemophilia: you bleed and bleed and bleed.
|
|
grief-and-loss
hope-and-despair
|
David Mitchell |
|
755938e
|
I am going to tell you a secret. Everything is about wanting. Everything. Things happen because of people wanting. Watch closely, and you'll see what I mean.
|
|
|
David Mitchell |
|
35b4334
|
Nothing is as eloquent as nothing.
|
|
|
David Mitchell |
|
97d2c63
|
Sometimes the fluffy bunny of incredulity zooms round the bend so rapidly that the greyhound of language is left, agog, in the starting cage.
|
|
language
|
David Mitchell |
|
14f07af
|
A writer flirts with schizophrenia, nurtures synesthesia, and embraces obsessive-compulsive disorder. Your art feeds on you, your soul, and, yes, to a degree, your sanity. Writing novels worth reading will bugger up your mind, jeopardize your relationships, and distend your life. You have been warned.
|
|
irony
writer
inspirational
|
David Mitchell |
|
3368f10
|
Do," said Louisa finally, "whatever you can't not do."
|
|
integrity
|
David Mitchell |
|
b75d1ee
|
I'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.
|
|
grief
memories
parents
|
David Mitchell |
|
8b45d6a
|
Peace, though beloved of our Lord, is a cardinal virtue only if your neighbors share your conscience.
|
|
peace
|
David Mitchell |
|
19b6a20
|
We live on, as long as there are people to live on in.
|
|
|
David Mitchell |
|
8cbf5b2
|
Love's pure free joy when it works, but when it goes bad you pay for the good hours at loan-shark prices.
|
|
|
David Mitchell |
|
7bd49be
|
Human cruelty can be infinite. Human generosity can be boundless.
|
|
|
David Mitchell |
|
1fc1106
|
Scholars discern motions in 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 & virtuous acts. What precipitates acts? Belief. Belief is both prize & battlefield, within the mind & in the mind's mirror, the world. If we humanity is a ladder of tribes, a colosseum of confronta..
|
|
humanity
life-and-living
|
David Mitchell |
|
190b8aa
|
Memories are their own descendents masquerading as the ancestors of the present.
|
|
|
David Mitchell |
|
c29cf78
|
Titanic. actually virtual Titanic, future perceive
|
|
|
David Mitchell |
|
c78be84
|
This isn't lust. Lust wants, does the obvious, and pads back into the forest. Love is greedier. Love wants round-the-clock care; protection; rings, vows, joint accounts; scented candles on birthdays; life insurance. Babies. Love's a dictator.
|
|
philosophical
love
philosophy
inspirational
the-bone-clocks
|
David Mitchell |
|
58dfa2f
|
To enslave an individual troubles your consciences, Archivist, but to enslave a clone is no more troubling than owning the latest six-wheeler ford, ethically. Because you cannot discern our differences, you assume we have none. But make no mistake: even same-stem fabricants cultured in the same wombtank are as singular as snowflakes.
|
|
slavery
dystopia
science-fiction
|
David Mitchell |
|
2a4afe0
|
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. Power's comings and goings, from host to host, via war, marriage, ballot box, diktat, and accident of birth, are the plot of history. The empowered may serve..
|
|
|
David Mitchell |
|
7ca020e
|
It's true, reading too many novels makes you go blind.
|
|
|
David Mitchell |
|
d41d4bc
|
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. Power's comings and goings, from host to host, via war, marriage, ballot box, diktat, and accident of birth, are the plot of history. The empowered may serve..
|
|
|
David Mitchell |
|
bb848fb
|
Torturous advances won over generations can be lost by a single stroke of a myopic president's pen or a vainglorious general's sword.
|
|
|
David Mitchell |
|
67c9025
|
The truth of a myth...is not in its words but its patterns.
|
|
|
David Mitchell |
|
1de21dd
|
The human world is made of stories, not people. The people the stories use to tell themselves are not to be blamed
|
|
|
David Mitchell |
|
1c9ce2a
|
Mother used to say escape is never further than the nearest book.
|
|
escape
|
David Mitchell |
|
42a72ec
|
The soul is a verb." He impales a lit candle on a spike. "Not a noun."
|
|
|
David Mitchell |
|
810add7
|
Her only friends on the estate were books, and books can talk but do not listen.
|
|
|
David Mitchell |
|
16fd507
|
These jokes the world plays, they're not funny at all.
|
|
|
David Mitchell |