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1a701fb
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Too cowardly to be a warrior, but not enough of a coward to lie down and roll over like a good doggy.
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David Mitchell |
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98df1fa
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A dinery server behaving like a pureblood attracts trouble; trouble attracts blame; blame demands a scrapegoat.
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David Mitchell |
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d9dbb10
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Embrace your enemy," the elders urged, "to prevent him striking you." ("Embrace your enemy," Henry quipped, "to feel his dagger tickle your kidneys.")"
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David Mitchell |
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c6f9ef6
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A Scot can turn a perfectly decent name into a head-butt.
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David Mitchell |
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a20883d
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Well wakey fucking wakey, sunbeam! Life's fucking Borstal!
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David Mitchell |
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64bc669
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In the smoky firelight the two old men nodded off like a pair of ancient kings passing the aeons in their tumuli. Made a musical notation of their snores. Elgar is to be played by a bass tuba, Ayrs a bassoon.
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music
snores
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David Mitchell |
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1cf2f44
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Like Solzhenitsyn, I shall return, one bright dusk.
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David Mitchell |
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2a8cd7e
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A bird hopped onto the foaming lilac outside. Its throat quivered; notes rose and fell out. As long as it kept singing and I kept staring, I told myself, I wouldn't start crying.
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David Mitchell |
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7bc8ae4
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We drift, often on a whim, searching for something to search for.
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David Mitchell |
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793c8b7
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The truth of a myth, your Honor, is not its words but its patterns.
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patterns
truth
words
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David Mitchell |
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1014868
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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.
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conspiracy
dystopia
martyr
purpose
revolution
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David Mitchell |
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c6f7bfb
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Birth deals us out a hand of cards, but as important as their value is the place we are dealt them in.
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David Mitchell |
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e555533
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When a woman is interested in you, she'll let you know; if not, there's no aftershave, gift, or line you can spin to make her change her mind.
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David Mitchell |
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fcab4ed
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and then we hear a noise like ... a town being dropped, and everything in it smashing to bits.
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David Mitchell |
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67eb47f
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It's diabolical." "It doesn't look all that bad to me." " 'Diabolical' means 'satanic,' sis." "Why's your maze so satanic, then?" "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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5a0cdc0
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He lights another match to see if it's a time worth getting up for: 4:05. No. An inbetween hour.
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David Mitchell |
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038338e
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nothing is more tiresome than being told what to admire,
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David Mitchell |
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53be1b8
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Beware of asking people to question what's real and what isn't. They may reach conclusions you didn't see coming.
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David Mitchell |
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e7b3675
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There's a link between bigotry and bad spelling. I've met it before.
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David Mitchell |
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942d9f1
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People are masks, with masks under those masks, and masks under those, and down you
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David Mitchell |
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71c9663
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Anything is true if enough people believe it is.
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David Mitchell |
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abda1cc
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Tokyo is a model of that serial big-bang theory of the universe. It explodes at five P.M. and people matter is hurled to the suburbs, but by 5 A.M. the people-matter gravity reasserts itself, and everything surges back toward the center, where mass densens for the next explosion.
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David Mitchell |
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03dc049
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Valleysmen'd not want to hear, she answered, that human hunger birthed the Civ'lize, but human hunger killed it too. I know it from other tribes offland what I stayed with. 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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916f0ad
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Civilization's like the economy, or Tinkerbell: If people stop believing it's real, it dies.
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David Mitchell |
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797561d
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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 clue how brave you have to be just to carry on.
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David Mitchell |
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b333869
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Power and money Like Pooh Bear and honey Stick fast.
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power
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David Mitchell |
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949197c
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we'll never give up, never stop looking. Always I wonder. Sometimes I envy the weeping parents of the definitely dead you see on TV. Grief is an amputation, but hope is incurable hemophilia: you bleed and bleed and bleed.
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David Mitchell |
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a7c6da7
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Growing old is an unwinnable campaign. During this war we witness ugly scenes. Truths mutate to whims. Faith becomes cynical transactions between liars. Sacrifices turn out to be needless excesses. Heroes become old farts, and young farts become heroes. Ethics become logos on sports clothing.
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David Mitchell |
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5446167
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Why do things at all? What is it that stops the world simply . . . seizing up?" . . . . "Do you know?" . . . . "I don't know the answer, no. Sometimes I think it's the only question, and that all the other questions are tributaries that flow into it. . . . Might the answer be 'love'?"
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David Mitchell |
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b858d21
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Then the three of us hug, and if I could choose on moment of my life to sit inside of for the rest of eternity...it'd be now, no question.
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David Mitchell |
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754bf23
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The media--and not just The Washington Post--is where democracies conduct their civil wars.
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David Mitchell |
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91db28c
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That's my problem with new-age stuff. In common with many irrational views it harks back to a sense of something ancient while rejecting anything provably historical. It's like the miserable concept of Original Sin. There seems to be an obsession with the idea that there were ancient humans, uncorrupted by their capricious intellects, who lived in the 'right way'. They didn't eat too much dairy or any wheat. They didn't sit down too long fo..
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David Mitchell |
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ed3ee3f
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The impossible is negotiable. What is possible is malleable.
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David Mitchell |
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e134967
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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 believe humanity is a ladder of tribes, a colosseum of con..
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David Mitchell |
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54c1c82
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I quote Seneca's warning to Nero: No matter how many of us you kill, you will never kill your successor.
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David Mitchell |
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6861195
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So where did you go, Holly?" Rafiq never tires of this conversation, no matter how often we do it. "Everywhere," says Lorelei, being brave and selfless. "Colombia, Australia, China, Iceland, Old New York. Didn't you, Gran?" "I did, yes." I wonder what life in Cartagena, in Perth, in Shanghai is like now. Ten years ago I could have streetviewed the cities, but the Net's so torn and ragged now that even when we have reception it runs at prebr..
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David Mitchell |
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c88388a
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Uncle Norm says, 'Pity is a form of abuse.
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David Mitchell |
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72f781b
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No one's ever very sure if doves and pigeons are the same bird or not.
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David Mitchell |
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5c8e2e1
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The only explanation is that my senses, memory, and mind are conspiring against my well-being, and nothing's scarier than that.
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David Mitchell |
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f711b80
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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 she'll stay a day or two, then jet off. You, your safety, your family are nothing,
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David Mitchell |
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149bf00
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That love loves fidelity, she riposted, is a myth woven by men from their insecurities.
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David Mitchell |
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d275b1f
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No one else has lived this life.
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David Mitchell |
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2c9b1ab
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Sawing the head off a thunder god with a rusty hacksaw is not easy when you are eleven years old.
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David Mitchell |
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e0ca419
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Wrong turns teach us the right way.
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David Mitchell |