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910c2c3
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One's ribs shouldn't be prison bars.
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death-and-dying
life
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David Mitchell |
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8dcfcb0
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Pain is strong, aye - but friends' eyes, more strong." I told him that he knows next to nothing about me & I know nothing about him. He jabbed at his eyes & jabbed at mine, as if that single gesture were ample explanation."
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David Mitchell |
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8f7c3c9
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I pass through many Me's in the course of my day, each one selfish with his time. The Lying-in-Bed me and the Enjoying-the-Hot-Shower Me are particularly selfish. The Late Me loathes the pair of them.
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David Mitchell |
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defa418
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As an experienced editor, I disapprove of flashbacks, foreshadowings, and tricksy devices; they belong in the 1980s with M.A.s in postmodernism and chaos theory.
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writing
satire
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David Mitchell |
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f0e5461
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Maybe then you comprehend, speaking one language only is a prison!
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David Mitchell |
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f479d39
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A mountain you're plannin' on climbin' ain't the same as the one you ain't. It ain't so pretty...
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David Mitchell |
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81981e7
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If, by happiness, you mean the absence of adversity I and all fabricants are the happiest stratum in corpocracy as genomicists insist. However, if happiness means the conquest of adversity or a sense of purpose, or the xercise of one's will to power, then of all Nea So Copros's slaves we surely are the most miserable.
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David Mitchell |
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36ccdc6
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The soul is a verb. . . . Not a noun.
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David Mitchell |
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97f3380
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I added 'writers' to my list of people not to trust. They make everything up.
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David Mitchell |
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c956f10
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Controls is about fear, see. If you're afraid enough 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, there is no standing up. Victims aren't cowards. Outsiders, like, they never have a..
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David Mitchell |
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b67b790
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He who would do battle with the many-headed hydra of human nature must pay a world of pain & his family must pay it along with him! & only as you gasp your dying breath shall you understand, your life amounted to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean!' Yet what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?
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David Mitchell |
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74d1453
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This world spins from the same unseen forces that twist our hearts.
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David Mitchell |
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cb55408
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Experimentally, silently, I mouth I love you ... No one hears, no one sees, but the tree falls in the forest just the same.
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David Mitchell |
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1b59589
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For white men, to live is to own, or to try to own more, or to die trying to own more. Their appetites are astonishing! They own wardrobes, slaves, carriages, houses, warehouses, and ships. They own ports, cities, plantations, valleys, mountains, chains of islands. They own this world, its jungles, its skies, and its seas. Yet they complain that Dejima is a prison. They complain they are not free.
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David Mitchell |
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b951885
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How lazily "xperts" dismiss what they fail to understand!"
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David Mitchell |
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53d6983
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War may be an auction for countries. For soldiers it's a lottery.
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David Mitchell |
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324b6bb
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if you bare your arse to a vengeful unicorn, the number of possible outcomes dwindles to one.
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revenge
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David Mitchell |
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c184c7d
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Time is the speed at which the past decays.
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David Mitchell |
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f78837b
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Have you noticed," said John, "how countries call theirs 'sovereign nuclear deterrents,' but call the other countries' ones 'weapons of mass destruction'?"
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war
nuclear
weapons-of-mass-destruction
wmd
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David Mitchell |
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faa1e6e
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Secrets 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?
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secrets
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David Mitchell |
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1841066
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Why ask a question whose answer would demand ten more questions?
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David Mitchell |
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45d4ead
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Act', implores the Ghost of Future Regret. 'I shan't give you another chance'. [and so Jacob does] 'Damned fool,' groans the Demon of Present Regret. 'What have you done?
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David Mitchell |
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9139cf6
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Have you noticed," said John, "how countries call theirs 'sovereign nuclear deterrents,' but call the other countries' ones 'weapons of mass destruction'?" --
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war
nuclear
weapons-of-mass-destruction
wmd
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David Mitchell |
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5b215a9
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The spirit was willing but the flesh was weak.
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humor
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David Mitchell |
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19c0183
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If you love and are loved, whatever you do affects others.
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David Mitchell |
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e8bc74e
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All revolutions are the sheerest fantasy until they happen; then they become historical inevitabilities.
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David Mitchell |
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11afd6e
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Truth has this habit of changing after the fact, don't you find?
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David Mitchell |
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9e9fae6
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Power is crack cocaine for your ego and battery acid for your soul.
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David Mitchell |
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d27b2fa
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Self pity, Orito reminds herself yet again, is a noose dangling from a rafter.
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David Mitchell |
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f27a148
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Don't bemoan your misspent life quite yet. Forgive me for flaunting my experience, but you have no conception of what a misspent life constitutes.
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David Mitchell |
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7792f49
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She has to lose her pre-Copernican view of a universe revolving around herself.
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David Mitchell |
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5efd4dc
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One writes music because winter is eternal and because, if one didn't, the wolves and blizzards will be at one's throat all the sooner.
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David Mitchell |
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a9d7c7d
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Yet for the first time in three days, I want something. I want the forest lord to turn me into a cedar. The very oldest islanders say that if you are in the interior mountains on the night when the forest lord counts his trees, he includes you in the number and turns you into a tree.
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japan
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David Mitchell |
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6c50786
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Eva. Every day I've climbed up the belfry chanting a lucky chant at one syllable per beat, "To-day-to-day-let-her-be-here-to-day-to-day."
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David Mitchell |
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5caadb9
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Go on, my dear," urges the snake. "Take one. Hear it? 'Pluck me,' it's saying. That big, shiny red one. 'Pluck me, pluck me now and pluck me hard.' You know you want to." "But God," quotes Eve, putting out feelers for an , clever girl, "expressly forbids us to eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge." "Ah yessssss, God ... But God gave us life, did He not? And God gave us desire, did He not? And God gave us taste, did He not? And who else..
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myth
religion
god
tree-of-knowledge
serpent
apple
snake
knowledge
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David Mitchell |
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e0aaff6
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We all think we're in control of our own lives, but really they're pre-ghostwritten by forces around us.
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David Mitchell |
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fd35eff
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The music provokes a sharp longing the music soothes.
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David Mitchell |
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22ce313
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If swans weren't real, myths'd make them up.
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David Mitchell |
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aa70fa5
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The uncreated and the dead exist solely in our actual and virtual pasts.
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David Mitchell |
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32ebae6
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All rising suns set.
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David Mitchell |
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e80da51
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The conflict between corporations and activists is that of narcolepsy versus remembrance. The corporations have money, power, and influence. Our sole weapon is public outrage. Outrage blocked the Yuccan Dam, ousted Nixon, and in part, terminated the monstrosities in Vietnam. But outrage is unwieldy to manufacture and handle. First, you need scrutiny; second, widespread awareness; only when this reaches a critical mass does public outrage ex..
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David Mitchell |
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4efe7c4
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Only professional diplomats, inveterate idiots and women view diplomacy as a long-term substitute for war.
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David Mitchell |
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005337f
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Art feasts upon its maker
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David Mitchell |
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42d9f91
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Oh, once you've been initiated into the Elderly, the world doesn't want you back." Veronica settled herself in a rattan chair and adjusted her hat just so. "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 sec..
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life-experience
old-age
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David Mitchell |