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1489a12
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Why's it okay to draw spaceships if you're seven, but not okay to draw diabolical mazes? Who decides that spending money on Space Invaders is fine, but if you buy a calculator with loads of symbols you're asking to be picked on? Why's it okay to listen to the Top 40 on Radio 1 but not okay to listen to stations in other languages?
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David Mitchell |
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76cb156
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Fear hardens caution, but boredom erodes it.
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David Mitchell |
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d7bbed0
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We are only what we know.
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David Mitchell |
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aefbd3c
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Mental maps. Maps with edges. And for Auden, for so many of us, it's the edges of the maps that fascinate...
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maps
mental-maps
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David Mitchell |
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d28777a
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Another example of their hatefulness while my dander's up: in order to get themselves off the hook of sometimes liking uncool things, they refer to them as 'guilty pleasures', which is a ridiculous expression. What? So you like Abba, or Roger Moore as James Bond, but have been led to believe that this taste is somehow infra dig, so you style it a 'guilty pleasure', thus demonstrating you're sufficiently relaxed and self-deprecating to own u..
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David Mitchell |
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b1b0824
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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.
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David Mitchell |
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f1aab6c
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I envy the God-intoxicated Boyces of the world. Prayer may be a placebo for the disease of helplessness, but placebos can make you feel better.
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David Mitchell |
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ee9956d
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contemplating that, while the wealthy are no more likely to be born stupid than the poor, a wealthy upbringing compounds stupidity while a hardscrabble childhood dilutes it, if only for Darwinian reasons. This is why the elite need a prophylactic barrier of shitty state schools, to prevent clever kids from working-class post codes ousting them from the Enclave of Privilege.
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David Mitchell |
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04a20f2
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Nothing attunes you to the beauty of the quotidian like a man who decides not to kill you after all
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quotidian
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David Mitchell |
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3d89901
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I am designing the future on beer mats, like Churchill and Stalin at Yalta.
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David Mitchell |
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cefe60a
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For White man, life is to own, or to try to own more, or to die trying to own more.
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David Mitchell |
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d98e9f5
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Some might think that acting all modest and yet feeling all megalomaniacal is dishonest. I say it's a cultural thing. And of course it's not megalomania (well, if it is, I'm the worst person to judge - just don't put me in charge of soldiers), it's just general high self-esteem. And it means that when I do have moments of self-loathing, I don't feel worthless but that I've let myself down - which implies that, even when feeling low, I still..
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David Mitchell |
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73b49b8
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If you've never been through it, you can't understand it, not really. Lucky you, I say. Control is about fear, see. If you're afraid 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, th..
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David Mitchell |
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a905200
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Her professional conscience is a collar. I hold the leash.
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David Mitchell |
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3637943
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I can't blame them. I would have stared at me, too.
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David Mitchell |
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02a0dea
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De wereld is al wankel genoeg
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David Mitchell |
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b2e147c
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Deeper'n that it's this. The savage sat'fies his needs now. He's hungry, he'll eat. He's angry, he'll knuckly. He's swellin', he'll shoot up a woman. His master is his will, an' if his will say-soes "Kill" he'll kill. Like fangy animals. Yay, that was the Kona. Now the Civ'lized got the same needs too, but he sees further. He'll eat half his food now, yay, but plant half so he won't go hungry 'morrow. He's angry, he'll stop'n' think why so ..
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David Mitchell |
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464fa70
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Time is the speed at which the past decays, but disneys enable a brief resurrection.
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David Mitchell |
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99409be
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When you die, your soul crosses the Dusk between life and the Blank Sea. The journey takes forty-nine days,
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David Mitchell |
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f601a77
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Sixsmith, Eva. Because her name is a synonym for temptation: what treads nearer to the core of man? Because her soul swims in her eyes. Because I dream of creeping through the velvet folds to her room, where I let myself in, hum her a tune so-so-so softly, she stands with her naked feet on mine, her ear to my heart, and we waltz like string puppets. After that kiss, she says, "Vous embrassez comme un poisson rouge!" and in moonlight mirrors..
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David Mitchell |
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4855737
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She didn't tell me to use a condom, so I didn't: a bit of a risk, but it's her risk, not mine,
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David Mitchell |
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341d7c2
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I wish, he thinks, spoken words could be captured and kept in a locket.
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David Mitchell |
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5b9b86f
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The river's vowels and the trees' consonants speak a not-quite-foreign language.
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David Mitchell |
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ec3ba6d
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Taking it all the way to a disciplinary procedure and talking to a national newspaper is the mark of an unusual man. But is he principled or just stubborn? Righteous or self-righteous? Would it be a better world if everyone was like him? God, no! It would be a much better world if no one was. The only useful role for people like that is to stand up to each other. You need the unbending Churchills to save us from the mass-murdering Hitlers b..
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David Mitchell |
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23e76d5
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In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul; for the human species, selfishness is extinction. Is this the doom written within our nature? If we believe that humanity may transcend tooth & 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, suc..
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David Mitchell |
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bb7c0eb
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Are you what you believe yourself to be?
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David Mitchell |
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458f62d
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No wonder it's all such a fucking mess. I divided up my possible futures, put them into separate accounts, and now they're all spent. Big thoughts for a bent little lawyer.
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David Mitchell |
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6f8f4df
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The dust was deep and crisp and even.
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David Mitchell |
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3b2014e
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But 'luckily,' the train before mine was so late that it still hadn't departed, All the seats were taken, and I had to squeeze into a three-inch slot. I lost my balance when the train pulled away, but a human crumple zone buffered my fall. We stayed like that, half fallen. The Diagonal People.
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David Mitchell |
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c4ee6e5
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I envied my uncritical, unthinking sisters.
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David Mitchell |
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891c6a6
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I Din't finish speakin' my cure 'cos Roses schnockoed my face so hard the ground dived forward an' I crashed my jaxy.
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David Mitchell |
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0faf3d4
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Mis'ry'n'barrassment are hungersome for blame
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David Mitchell |
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dbc0e49
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The Icon'ry, Aunt Bees said, held Valleysmen's past an' present all t'gether
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David Mitchell |
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8a64ff4
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I know that don't sound senseful, but yarns 'bout Old-Un Smart an' flyin' dwellin's an' grown' babbits in bottles an' pictures zoomin' cross the Hole World ain't senseful neither but that's how it was, so storymen an' old books tell it.
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David Mitchell |
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0671f77
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The Ghost-Girl's lips was fixed in a bitter smile, but her creamy eyes was sad so sad but proud'n'strong too.
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David Mitchell |
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e82fb59
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Oh, eerie'n'so beautsome'n'blue she was, my soul was achin'.
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David Mitchell |
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aea0d53
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We din't speak much from then 'cos speakin' can be heard by spyers what you can't spy.
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David Mitchell |
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06051bc
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Then the true true is diff'rent to the seemin' true? said I. Yay, an' it usually is, I mem'ry Meronym sain', an' that's why true true is presher'n'rarer'n diamonds
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David Mitchell |
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de41e32
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See, I thinked, Meronym knows a lot 'bout Smart an' life but Valleysmen know more 'bout death.
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David Mitchell |
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6014055
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I got a six'n'six so maybe my luck was healin', so I thinked, fool o' fate what I am, yay, what we all are.
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David Mitchell |
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0b98b14
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Most yarnin's got a bit o' true, some yarnin's got some true, an' a few yarnin's got a lot o' true.
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David Mitchell |
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ae9ea3d
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Poor England. Too much history for its acreage. Years grow inwards here, like my toenails.
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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 |
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b9b7c82
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Revolting' was the last word I ever spoke as someone who'd never kissed a girl.
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relationships
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David Mitchell |