David Mitchell Quotes - Page 7

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Writing is such a damn lonely sickness.

David Mitchell

Lonely, Writing, Sickness

David Mitchell (2012). “Cloud Atlas (Enhanced Movie Tie-in Edition): A Novel”, p.467, Random House Group

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I think it's natural for youth to be drawn to newness: The world is still new for them.

David Mitchell

Thinking, World, Youth

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Right, my phone. When these things first appeared, they were so cool. Only when it was too late did people realize they are as cool as electronic tags on remand prisoners.

David Mitchell

Phones, People, Too Late

David Mitchell (2007). “Ghostwritten”, p.70, Vintage

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Faith shall save your Soul from Death. Without Faith, Death is a drowning, the end of ends, and what sane man wouldn't fear that? But with Faith, Death is nothing worse than the end of the voyage we call life, and the beginning of an eternal voyage in a company of our Loved Ones, with griefs and woes smoothed out, and under the capacity of our Creator.

David Mitchell

Love, Grief, Men

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Go to hell, Willy, our souls eat poetry, but one has seven deadly sins to feed!

David Mitchell

Soul, Sin, Hell

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Birdsong foamed in the hour-before-dawn garden.

David Mitchell

Garden, Bird, Dawn

David Mitchell (2012). “Cloud Atlas (Enhanced Movie Tie-in Edition): A Novel”, p.84, Random House Group

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I'm not a great deep political thinker.

David Mitchell

Political, Thinker

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What is "poker"? A card game where abler liars take money off less able liars.

David Mitchell

Liars, Games, Cards

David Mitchell (2012). “Cloud Atlas (Enhanced Movie Tie-in Edition): A Novel”, p.213, Random House Group

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I really wish they hadn't made the set out of asbestos.

David Mitchell

Funny, Wish, Asbestos

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I elbowed my way into the grubby café, bought a pie that tasted of shoe polish and a pot of tea with cork crumbs floating in it, and eavesdropped on a pair of Shetland pony breeders. Despondency makes one hanker after lives one never led. Why have you given your life to books, TC? Dull, dull, dull! The memoirs are bad enough, but all that ruddy fiction! Hero goes on a journey, stranger comes to town, somebody wants something, they get it or they don't, will is pitted against will. "Admire me, for I am a metaphor.

David Mitchell

Book, Hero, Journey

David Mitchell (2008). “Cloud Atlas: A Novel”, p.169, Random House

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The her that lived in her looked out through her eyes, through my eyes, and at the me that lives in me.

David Mitchell

Eye, Her Eyes, Through My Eyes

David Mitchell (2007). “Ghostwritten”, p.54, Vintage

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. . .my dreams are the single unpredictable factor in my zoned days and nights. Nobody allots them, or censors them. Dreams are all I have ever truly owned.

David Mitchell

Dream, Night, Unpredictable

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When insolvent, pack minimally, with a valise tough enough to be thrown onto a London pavement from a first- or second-floor window. Insist on hotel rooms no higher.

David Mitchell

London, Pavement, Rooms

David Mitchell (2008). “Cloud Atlas: A Novel”, p.44, Random House

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Power. What do we mean? 'The ability to determine another man's luck.' ...how is it that some men attain mastery over others while the vast majority live and die as minions, as livestock? The answer is a holy trinity. First: God-given gifts of charisma. Second: the discipline to nurture these gifts to maturity, for though humanity's topsoil is fertile with talent, only one seed in ten thousand will ever flower -- for want of discipline. Third: the will to power.

David Mitchell

Flower, Mean, Maturity

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The rain's innumerable hooves spatter on the streets and roofs.

David Mitchell

Rain, Roof, Streets

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Oh, bein' young ain't easy 'cos ev'rythin' you're puzzlin'n'anxin' you're puzzlin'n'anxin' it for the first time.

David Mitchell

Firsts, Easy, Young

David Mitchell (2012). “Cloud Atlas (Enhanced Movie Tie-in Edition): A Novel”, p.268, Random House Group

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She was widely read enough to appreciate my literary wit but not so widely read that she knew my sources. I like that in a woman.

David Mitchell

Appreciate, Enough, Source

David Mitchell (2008). “Cloud Atlas: A Novel”, p.362, Random House

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Faith, the least exclusive club on Earth, has the craftiest doorman.

David Mitchell

Earth, Clubs, Exclusive

David Mitchell (2012). “Cloud Atlas (Enhanced Movie Tie-in Edition): A Novel”, p.80, Random House Group

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…and there, in the background, the sky’s sediment had sunk to a place where all the woe of the words ‘I am’ dissolved into blue peace. He said it. ‘The ocean.

David Mitchell

Ocean, Blue, Sky

David Mitchell (2008). “Cloud Atlas”, p.336, Hachette UK

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Mother used to say escape is never further than the nearest book. Well, Mumsy, no, not really. Your beloved large-print sagas of rags, riches, and heartbreak were no camouflage against the miseries trained on you by the tennis ball launcher of life, were they? But, yes, Mum, there again, you have a point. Books don’t offer real escape, but they can stop a mind scratching itself raw.

David Mitchell

Mother, Real, Book

David Mitchell (2008). “Cloud Atlas: A Novel”, p.357, Random House

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As many truths as men. Occasionally, I glimpse a truer Truth, hiding in imperfect simulacrums of itself, but as I approach, it bestirs itself & moves deeper into the thorny swamp of dissent.

David Mitchell

Moving, Men, Glimpse

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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.

David Mitchell

Editors, Chaos, Theory

David Mitchell (2012). “Cloud Atlas (Enhanced Movie Tie-in Edition): A Novel”, p.155, Random House Group

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So little is actually worthy of belief or disbelief. Better to strive to coexist than seek to disapprove . . .

David Mitchell

Littles, Belief, Strive

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The song instantly insisted it'd never existed.

David Mitchell

Song

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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.

David Mitchell

Men, White Man, Sea

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Born: January 12, 1969
Occupation: Novelist
Cite this Page: Citation

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