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bf93204
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Come, Adam, a wise man does not step betwixt the beast & his meat.
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David Mitchell |
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d4b91c4
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Aoife, in her dreams, makes a noise like a friendless harmonica.
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David Mitchell |
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c6350a9
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My landlord is eating a blueberry-blooded Popsicle.
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David Mitchell |
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9fa0955
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Mrs. Todds my English teacher gives an automatic F if anyone ever writes "I woke up and it was all a dream" at the end of a story. She says it violates the deal between reader and writer, that it's a cop-out, it's the Boy Who Cried Wolf."
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David Mitchell |
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ca1929f
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Aroma of fresh bread led me to a bakery where a deformed woman with no nose sold me a dozen crescent-moon pastries. Only wanted one, but thought she had enough problems.
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David Mitchell |
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bf91f37
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Dappled sunshine shivers.
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David Mitchell |
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1561f34
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At odd moments she may fret over a blank in her memory, but soon a Pied Piper thought will come dancing along and her untrained mind will follow...
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David Mitchell |
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b5a6be3
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Air in the chateau clammy like laundry that won't dry. Door-banging drafts down the passageways. Autumn is leaving its mellowness behind for its spiky, rotted stage. Don't remember summer even saying good-bye.
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David Mitchell |
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ed3d623
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I can't make any promises... I became a scientist because...it's ike panning for gold in a muddy torrent. Truth is the gold. I- I don't know what I want to do...' 'Journalists work in torrents just as muddy.' The moon is over the water. 'Do...whatever you can't not do.
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David Mitchell |
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3f7c493
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Leave Ueno Station through the park entrance, go past the concert hall and museums, skirt around the fountain, and you come to a sort of tree garden. Homeless people live here, in tents made of sky-blue plastic sheeting and wooden poles. The best tents even have doors.
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David Mitchell |
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e5d2602
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Nowadays not even the villains smoke. Now smoking really is an expression of the rebel spirit--it's virtually sodding illegal! Yet what are we without our addictions? Insipid. Flavorless.
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David Mitchell |
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30b9f3b
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The Dusk follows you as you go through it. If it touches you, you cease to exist, so one wrong turn down a dead end, that's the end of you. That's why you have to learn the labyrinth by heart.
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David Mitchell |
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626406c
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Once any tyranny becomes accepted as ordinary, according to Veronica, its victory is assured.
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David Mitchell |
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75cd394
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Holly rubs her temples. "Are we talking ... vampires?" Arkady groans. "On, the V-word! Here it comes again."
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David Mitchell |
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a69411a
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The colorblind get by just fine not knowing blue from purple.
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David Mitchell |
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0ab834e
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and she looks like a girl unwrapping an expensive present she knew she was getting. I
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David Mitchell |
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d1c6c8c
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Only one-tenth of what you write will make it into your manuscript, but when you knock on that tenth" - I rap my knuckles on the table - "you'll hear oaken solidity, not sawdust and glue."
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writing
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David Mitchell |
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00b8be7
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God only knows how many previous owners it's had, but it's been washed so the stains aren't sticky at least,
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David Mitchell |
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450f519
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Are you mad?" Always a trickier question than it looks."
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David Mitchell |
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fd73d02
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Prescient woman called Meronym visited my dwellin' for a spell, an' nothin'd be the same, not in my life, not in the Valleys, nay, not never.
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David Mitchell |
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7a5d71c
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magic is merely normality that you're not yet used to.
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David Mitchell |
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d9d2fe0
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So you're a sort of archivist for the future,
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David Mitchell |
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908d659
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Bad things happen to realists.
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David Mitchell |
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8e60c19
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On bad days you wonder, 'Why not just back off from the war and lead a quiet metalife?
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war
wonder
metalife
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David Mitchell |
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2a4f2ae
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I consider how you don't get to choose whom you're attracted to, you only get to wonder about it, retrospectively. Racial differences I've always found to have an aphrodisiac effect on me, but class difference is sexuality's Berlin Wall.
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David Mitchell |
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08ff900
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just say, "It happened, but it's over," and get on with the ordinary stuff of family and life."
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David Mitchell |
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b16650b
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Fatalism's a weak antidepressant, but there's nothing stronger at Dr. Kumar's.
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David Mitchell |
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7eab2eb
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So you're reinstating the law of the jungle?" asks Mo. "You were bringing it back, every time you filled your tank."
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David Mitchell |
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1e60db6
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A wise man does not step betwixt the beast and his meat
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David Mitchell |
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6adfe3b
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The greats? Well, they all share that quality Napoleon most admired in his generals: luck. Be in Kabul when it falls. Be in Manhattan on 9/11. Be in Paris the night Diana's driver makes his fatal misjudgement." I flinch as the windows blast in, but, no, that's not now, that's ten days ago. "A journalist marries the news, Seymour. She's capricious, cruel, and jealous. She demands you follow her to wherever on Earth life is cheapest, where sh..
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David Mitchell |
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99654cf
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Times are you say a person's b'liefs ain't true, they think you're sayin' their lifes ain't true an' their truth ain't true.
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David Mitchell |
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e136bbf
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A true suicide is a paced, disciplined certainty. People pontificate, 'Suicide is Selfishness.' Career churchmen go a step further and call it a cowardly assault on the living...Cowardice has nothing to do with it - suicide takes considerable courage. No, what's selfish i to demand another to endure an intolerable existence, just to spare families, friends and enemies a bit of soul-searching.
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David Mitchell |
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ca53b74
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The lovelorn, the cry-for-helpers, all mawkish tragedians who give suicide a bad name are the idiots who rush it, like amateur conductors. .A true suicide is a paced, disciplined certainty. People pontificate, 'Suicide is selfishness.' Career churchmen like Pater go a step further and call it a cowardly assault on the living. Oafs argue this specious line for varying reasons: to evade fingers of blame, to impress one's audience with one's m..
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suicide
existence
cowardice
selfishness
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David Mitchell |
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000352c
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But 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.
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revolution
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David Mitchell |
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6c155a6
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The world runs on strangers coping.
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David Mitchell |
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d419b29
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The lounge is empty of bodies but full of debris: wineglasses, ashtrays, food wrappers, and a pair of silk boxer shorts over the Boer War rifle
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David Mitchell |
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f157781
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As Boris Johnson has pointed out, it's now an offence to swear at a police officer. So should you incur a public-spirited 50,000-volt warning shot - perhaps for brandishing your pension book in an aggressive manner or because a young PC has mistaken your tartan shopping trolley for a piece of field artillery - don't accidentally shout "Oh fuck!" or you might get sent to prison."
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David Mitchell |
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ff8cfbf
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facet of existence that only a few hundred in history have glimpsed, but so what? I could hardly tell
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David Mitchell |
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5b71c3a
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marriage can, should and must evolve. Don't be alarmed, and don't resent it. Be patient and kind, unflaggingly. In the long run, it's the unasked-for hot-water bottles on winter nights that matter more than the extravagant gestures. Express gratitude, especially for work that tends to get taken for granted. Identify problems as they arise, remembering that anger is flammable. When you've behaved like a donkey, Peter,' the groom smiles at hi..
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David Mitchell |
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d095481
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We--by whom I mean anyone over sixty--commit two offenses just by existing. One is Lack of Velocity. We drive too slowly, walk too slowly, talk too slowly. The world will do business with dictators, perverts, and drug barons of all stripes, but being slowed down it cannot abide. Our second offence is being Everyman's memento mori. The world can only get comfy in shiny-eyed denial if we are out of sight.
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David Mitchell |
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6dd39a0
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Nothing exists that cannot be synthesised.
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David Mitchell |
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8519a73
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You only value something if you know it'll end.
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David Mitchell |
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6cc3882
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Why does any martyr cooperate with his judases? We see an end beyond the endgame.
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martyr
purpose
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David Mitchell |
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8e77635
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THE LINES ARE simple enough: "Men have imagined republics and principalities that never really existed at all. 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; for a man who strives after goodness in all his acts is sure to come to ruin, since there are so many men who are not good."
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David Mitchell |