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9a9fcbb
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My voice was jus' a duck fart in a hurrycane.
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David Mitchell |
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dc8ae39
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Orito banishes all thoughts of Jacob de Zoet, and recalls Jacob de Zoet.
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longing
love
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David Mitchell |
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fa608ee
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A society where you're not allowed to blow your own trumpet is so much more nuanced, sophisticated and interesting than the grim world of literalism that's being ushered in.
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David Mitchell |
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a78884f
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Let me write about an Icelandic road trip; a running man; backflashes galore; and slowly disclose what it is he's running from. Bring him to Asbyrgi; mention how the ravine was formed by a slammed-down hoof of Odin's horse. Mention how it's the Parliament of the Hidden Folk. Have him stare at the rock faces until the rock's faces stare back. Breathe deep the resinous tang of the spruces. Let him meet a ghost from his past. Hear the bird, lu..
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David Mitchell |
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88f627f
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Oh, aging is ruddy unbearable! The I's we were yearn to breathe the world's air again, but can they ever break out from these calcified cocoons?
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David Mitchell |
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d80a57a
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Old Rekohu's claim to singularity, however, lay in its unique pacific creed. Since time immemorial, the Moriori's priestly caste dictated that whosoever spilt a man's blood killed his own mana - his honor, his worth, his standing & his soul. No Moriori would shelter, feed, converse with, or even see the persona non grata. If the ostracized murderer survived his first winter, the desperation of solitude usually drove him to a blowhole on Cap..
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peace
utopia
war
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David Mitchell |
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2c12226
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True, I only properly started talking with Todd half an hour ago, but every instance of undying love was only half an hour young, once upon a time.
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David Mitchell |
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8c3108a
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I shall pledge myself to the Abolitionist cause, because I owe my life to a self-freed slave & because I must begin somewhere.
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ocean
slavery
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David Mitchell |
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2d0e5a1
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One can spot a fellow musician in any context, even amongst policemen. The craziest-eyed, unruliest-haired one, either hungry-skinny or jovial-portly.
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David Mitchell |
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abb83ed
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If ever a place had a karma of damnation, it's Rottnest. And all those slick galleries selling Aboriginal art were eroding away my will to live. It's as if Germans built a Jewish food hall over Buchenwald.
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australia
rottnest-island
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David Mitchell |
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939d809
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After my modest victory I played patience (the card game, not the virtue, never that) in the lounge, something I had not done since my ill-starred Tintagel honeymoon with Madame X.
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David Mitchell |
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785f61a
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But thought has no eyelids to close or ears to block...
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David Mitchell |
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f86573f
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Pain is strong, aye - but friends' eyes, more strong." -Autua"
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David Mitchell |
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78cf0ea
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where there's Hilo, oh, there's blissweed.
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David Mitchell |
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a9828a4
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Cruelty has never made me smile.
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David Mitchell |
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b11beef
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Because her laughter spurts through a blowhole in the top of her head and sprays all over the morning.
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David Mitchell |
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196e8a7
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She has four sons," Nurse Purvis leads me on, "all with a London post code, but they never visit. You'd think old age was a criminal offense, not a destination we're all heading to." I consider airing my theory that our culture's coping strategy towards death is to bury it under consumerism and Sansara, that the Riverside Villas of the world are screens that enable this self-deception, and that the elderly are guilty: guilty of proving to u..
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David Mitchell |
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986795e
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If poor doomed Olly's a Radio 4 play, what am I?"" "You, Hugo," she kisses my earlobe, "are a sordid, low-budget French film. The sort you'd stumble across on TV at night. You know you'll regret it in the morning, but you keep watching anyway."
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low-budget
movie
radio-4
tv
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David Mitchell |
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e0b4aca
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There is no God but the one we dream up.
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David Mitchell |
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aaa2271
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Up the hill, sheep bleat, oblivious to human empires rising and falling.
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sheep
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David Mitchell |
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2775e2f
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Are you mad? Always a trickier question than it looks.
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David Mitchell |
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720ac3d
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Not a clue - and, no, I don't touch drugs. The world's unstable enough without scrambling your brain for kicks.
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drugs
kicks
unstable
world
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David Mitchell |
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d438511
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Look around. Walk. Find a cheap bed. Eat what the locals eat. Find a cheap beer. Try not to get fleeced. Talk. Pick up a few words in the local lingo. Just BE there, y'know? Sometimes," Brubeck bites into an apple, "Sometimes I want to be everywhere, all at once, so badly I could just...Do you ever get that feeling?"
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David Mitchell |
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b6decb3
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No entiendo como no te diste cuenta de que se trataba de una idea descabellada. Todas las revoluciones son una idea descabellada hasta que suceden; entonces se convierten en realidades historicas inevitables.
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David Mitchell |
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b3d43ce
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Run across a field of daisies at warp speed but keep your eyes on the ground. It's ace. Pedaled stars and dandelion comets streak the green universe.
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David Mitchell |
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68db973
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Hobbies are for pleasure, but rituals keep you going.
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pleasure
rituals
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David Mitchell |
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aa03293
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Cats seem too transdimensional to get hit by traffic, but it happens all the time.
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David Mitchell |
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352d721
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Don't mess with the fairies.
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David Mitchell |
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3ad08e2
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What if trying to avoid the future is what triggers it all?
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David Mitchell |
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f08a686
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Photographs make me forget if time is forwards or backwards. No, photographs make me wonder if there is a forwards or backwards.
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David Mitchell |
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ef3bf14
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The Future," says Ian, in a film-trailer voice. "Coming soon, to a Present near you."
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future
present
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David Mitchell |
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1fb2065
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Look at that! Life's more science-fictiony by the day. It's not just that you get old and your kids leave; it's that the world zooms away and leaves you hankering for whatever decade you felt most comfy in.
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David Mitchell |
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89c1dcc
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Don't worry, all is well. All is so perfectly, damnably well.
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David Mitchell |
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86bbeef
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Hello, tiny life-form of star compost, did you know that your lizardly life, too, is billiarded this way and that by quantum scissors, papers and stones? That your particles exist in a time-froth of little bridges and holes forever going back and around and under itself ? That the universe is the shape of a doughnut, and that if you had a powerful enough telescope you would see the tip of your tail?
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David Mitchell |
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fde9597
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This is how to control entire populations--don't suppress news, but make it so dumb and dull that nobody has any interest in it.
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David Mitchell |
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fc5d3ab
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Empires die, like all of us dancers in the strobe-lit dark.
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dark
empires
light
shadows
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David Mitchell |
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3fb8de2
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With a story, as with a well-chosen gift, we're happiest when surprised by something we didn't know we wanted.
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David Mitchell |
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2695d90
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Snow is bruised lilac in half light: such pure solace.
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David Mitchell |
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6f82f77
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This society doesn't work without booze - our parties aren't good enough, our conversations aren't sufficiently interesting, nor is our self-confidence high enough to sustain our interactions without alcohol. It's everywhere, lubricating everything.
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social-interactions
society
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David Mitchell |
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39a0ca6
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Well, Hae-Joo probed, what did I do to relax? I play Go against my sony, I said. "To relax?" he responded, incredulous. "Who wins, you or the sony?" The sony, I answered, or how would I ever improve? So winners, Hae-Joo proposed, are the real losers because they learn nothing? What, then, are losers? Winners? I said, If losers can xploit what their adversaries teach them, yes, losers can become winners in the long term."
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David Mitchell |
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9825df7
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The art teacher's scarlet book was called Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille. 'As the title suggests,' Mr Dunwoody saw the book'd caught my attention, 'it's about the history of opticians. What are you about?
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literature
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David Mitchell |
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572c6d7
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A book can't be a half fantasy any more than a woman can be half pregnant.
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literary-criticism
self-deprecating
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David Mitchell |
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5023f33
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Obscurity is Japan's outermost defense. The country doesn't to be understood.
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David Mitchell |
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ee05013
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When you write it, don't write it in the manner of a spooky story. Don't try to give an explanation. Just say that I don't know what to make of it, just write it like I tell it, so the reader can make up his own mind.
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interpretation
magical-realism
readers
stories
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David Mitchell |