David Mitchell Quotes (68 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing, Monday, 13th January —, p. 528
Cloud Atlas (2004)
Context: 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 confrontation, exploitation & bestiality, such a humanity is surely brought into being, & history’s Horroxes, Boer-haaves & Gooses shall prevail. You & I, the moneyed, the privileged, the fortunate, shall not fare so badly in this world, provided our luck holds. What of it if our consciences itch? Why undermine the dominance of our race, our gunships, our heritage & our legacy? Why fight the “natural” (oh, weaselly word!) order of things?
Why? Because of this: — one fine day, a purely predatory world shall consume itself. Yes, the Devil shall take the hindmost until the foremost is the hindmost. 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, such a world will come to pass. I am not deceived. It is the hardest of worlds to make real. Torturous advances won over generations can be lost by a single stroke of a myopic president’s pen or a vainglorious general’s sword.

“We--by whom I mean anyone over sixty--commit two offenses just bu existing. One is Lack of Velocity. We drive too slowly, walk to slowly, talk too slowly. The world will do business with dictators, perverts, and drugs barons of all stripes, but being slowed down it cannot abide. Our second offence is being Everyman's memento mori. The world can only get comfy in shiny-eyed denial if we are out of sight.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish", p. 315 (Nook edition)
Cloud Atlas (2004)

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

Our second offence is being Everyman's memento mori. The world can only get comfy in shiny-eyed denial if we are out of sight.
"The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish", p. 315 (Nook edition)
Cloud Atlas (2004)

“One fine day, a purely predatory world shall consume itself. Yes, the Devil shall take the hindmost until the foremost is the hindmost. In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul; for the human species, selfishness is extinction.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing", p. 508
Cloud Atlas (2004), The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing (Part 2)

David Mitchell: Trending quotes

“History admits no rules, only outcomes. What precipitates outcomes? Vicious acts & virtuous acts. What precipitates acts? Belief.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing", p. 528
Cloud Atlas (2004)

History

“"Your version of the truth is the only one that matters."
"Truth is singular. Its 'versions' are mistruths."”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"An Orison of Sonmi~451", p. 199 (Nook Edition)
Cloud Atlas (2004)

Truth

“Souls cross ages like clouds cross skies, an' tho' a cloud's shape nor hue nor size don't stay the same, it's still a cloud an' so is a soul.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"Sloosha's Crossin' an Ev'rythin' After", p. 308
Cloud Atlas (2004)
Context: Souls cross ages like clouds cross skies, an' tho' a cloud's shape nor hue nor size don't stay the same, it's still a cloud an' so is a soul. Who can say where the cloud's blowed from or who the soul'll be 'morrow? Only Sonmi the east an' the compass an' the atlas, yay, only the atlas o' clouds.

Age , Soul

David Mitchell Quotes

“What is this thing, "imagination?"”

David Mitchell

Interview in The Japan Times Online, (24 June 2007) https://archive.is/20121219091415/search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fb20070624a1.html
Context: What is this thing, "imagination?" A muscle that can be "forced" or "stretched"? Or something immune to the ethos of ganbaru [grit it out, or strive for one's best]? Like the relativist's view of light, it is both wave and particle, depending on what you want it to be. The verb "to imagine" is both active and passive, as in "Steve imagined his future," and "Such a future was never imagined." So, I work on my novel by imagining the world of 18th-century Nagasaki and its people and their fears and desires, as an act of will, and a lot of will is involved, believe me. However, I could ganbaru until I'm blue in the face. If my imagination doesn't work "passively" or even "intransitively," at its own behest rather than mine, and come up with cliche-demolishing twists of phrase and turns of plot and happy accidents and unexpected reactions from characters, then the book will be sterile. Well-written with luck, and even intelligent, but sterile. (...) Imagination is what makes art fertile.

Imagination

“The most malicious god is the god of the counted chicken.”

David Mitchell book Ghostwritten

"Clear Island"
Ghostwritten (1999)

God

“Yay, Old Uns’ Smart mastered sicks, miles, seeds an' made miracles ord’nary, but it din’t master one thing, nay, a hunger in the hearts o' humans, yay, a hunger for more.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After", p. 286
Cloud Atlas (2004)

Hunger , Heart

“Another war is always coming, Robert. They are never properly extinguished. What sparks war? The will to power, the backbone of human nature. The threat of violence, the fear of violence, or actual violence, is the instrument of this dreadful will… The nation state is merely human nature inflated to monstrous proportions. QED, nations are entities whose laws are written by violence. Thus it ever was, so ever shall it be.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"Letters from Zedelghem", p. 462
Cloud Atlas (2004)

War , Fear , Law , Nature

“Diplomacy… mops up war’s spillages; legitimizes its outcomes; gives the strong state the means to impose its will on a weaker one, while saving its fleets and battalions for weightier opponents.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"Letters from Zedelghem", p. 462
Cloud Atlas (2004)

War , Strong

“Travel far enough, you meet yourself.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"An Orison of Sonmi~451", p. 282 (Nook Edition)
Cloud Atlas (2004)

Travel

“As many truths as men. Ocassionally, 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 book Cloud Atlas

"The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing", p. 24 (Nook Edition)
Cloud Atlas (2004)

Men , Truth

“How lazily "xperts" [sic] dismiss what they fail to understand.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"An Orison of Sonmi~451", p. 305 (Nook Edition)
Cloud Atlas (2004)

Understanding

“Try this for deviancy: fabricants are mirrors held up to purebloods' consciences; what purebloods see reflected there sickens them. So they blame you for holding up the mirror."
I hid my shock by asking when purebloods might blame themselves.
Mephi replied, "History suggests, not until they are made to.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"An Orison of Sonmi~451", p. 168 (Nook Edition)
Cloud Atlas (2004)

History

“Courage is the highest quality for a soldier, but technology is a fine substitute.”

David Mitchell

Part 6
number9dream (2001)

Courage

“In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul; for the human species, selfishness is extinction.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

Soul , Selfishness

“The better organized the state, the duller its humanity.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"Letters from Zedelghem", p. 64 (Nook Edition)
Cloud Atlas (2004)

“Books don't offer real escape but they can stop a mind scratching itself raw.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"Letters from Zedelghem"
Cloud Atlas (2004)

Books

“What wouldn't I give now for a never-changing map of the ever-constant ineffable? To possess, as it were, an atlas of clouds.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish", p. 389
Cloud Atlas (2004)

Change

“Science devises ever bloodier means of war until humanity’s powers of destruction overcome our powers of creation and our civilisation drives itself to extinction.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"Letters from Zedelghem", p. 462
Cloud Atlas (2004)

War , Science

“Perhaps the best answer is that the writer that I am has been shaped by the stammering kid that I was, and that although my stammer didn’t make me write, it did, in part, inform and influence the writer I became. It’s true that stammerers can become more adept at sentence construction. Synonyms aren’t always neatly interchangeable. Sometimes choosing word B over word A requires you to construct a different sentence to house it—and quickly, too, before your listener smells the stammering rat.”

David Mitchell

Paris Review

Parting , Housing

“The actual past is brittle, ever-dimming + ever more problematic to access + reconstruct: in contrast, the virtual past is malleable, ever-brightening + ever more difficult to circumvent/expose as fraudulent. The present presses the virtual past into its own service, to lend credence to its mythologies + legitimacy to the imposition of will.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery", p. 340 (Nook edition)
Cloud Atlas (2004)

Past

“This rapacity, yes, powers, our Progress; for ends infernal or divine I know not. Nor do you know, sir. Nor do I overly care. I feel only gratitude that my Maker cast me on the winning side.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing", p. 422 (Nook edition)
Cloud Atlas (2004)

Feeling , Gratitude

“In a cycle as old as tribalism, ignorance of the Other engenders fear; fear engenders hatred; hatred engenders violence; violence engenders further violence until the only "rights," the only law, are whatever is willed by the most powerful.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"An Orison of Sonmi~451", p. 303 (Nook Edition)
Cloud Atlas (2004)

Fear , Law

“Sometimes the fluffy bunny of incredulity zooms round the bend so rapidly that the greyhound of language is left, agog, in the starting cage.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish", p. 155 (Nook Edition)
Cloud Atlas (2004)

“Whoever dies with the most stuff wins.”

David Mitchell

Part 5
number9dream (2001)

“The body is the outermost layer of the mind.”

David Mitchell

Part 6
number9dream (2001)

“Peace, though beloved of our Lord, is a cardinal virtue only if your neighbors share your conscience.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing", p. 23 (Nook Edition)
Cloud Atlas (2004)

Peace

“As long as you can Houdini your way out of the Sisyphean constraints then originality happens.”

David Mitchell

Interview "David Mitchell at Writers and Readers week, New Zealand" at ABC.net (30 March 2008) http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bookshow/stories/2008/2201562.htm

Way

“Right now I’m working on a book set in the thirty years on either side of 2010, but I shouldn’t give too many details or the next thing you know it’s on Wikipedia and if I change my mind and decide to recast King Lear in a pond of frogs and toads I’ll just give a hardworking Wikipedian an extra headache.”

David Mitchell

Interview in The Paris Review http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6034/the-art-of-fiction-no-204-david-mitchell

Books , Change

“That love loves fidelity [is] a myth woven by men from their insecurities.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"Letters from Zedelghem", p. 72 (Nook Edition)
Cloud Atlas (2004)

Love , Men

“To fool a judge, feign fascination, but to bamboozle the whole court, feign boredom.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing", p. 41 (Nook Edition)
Cloud Atlas (2004)

Fools

“Lunatics are writers whose works write them.”

David Mitchell book Ghostwritten

"Night Train"
Ghostwritten (1999)

“List'n, savages an Civ'lizeds ain't divvied by tribes or b'liefs or mountain ranges, nay, ev'ry human is both, yay.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After", p. 269 (Nook edition)
Cloud Atlas (2004)
Context: List'n, savages an Civ'lizeds ain't divvied by tribes or b'liefs or mountain ranges, nay, ev'ry human is both, yay. Old Uns'd got the Smart o' gods but the savagery o' jackals, an' that's what tripped the Fall.

Mountain

“What do I miss? Second-hand bookshops where I can find things I had no idea I wanted. AbeBooks helps, but it doesn't have that smell.”

David Mitchell

Interview in Stop Smiling magazine (29 June 2007) http://www.stopsmilingonline.com/story_detail.php?id=841&page=2]

Idea , Help

“Under the Enrichment Laws, consumers have to spend a fixed quota of dollars each month, depending on their strata. Hoarding is an anti-corpocratic crime.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"An Orison of Sonmi~451", p. 237
Cloud Atlas (2004)

Law , Dependency

“Your version of the truth is the only one that matters.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"Truth is singular. Its 'versions' are mistruths."
"An Orison of Sonmi~451", p. 199 (Nook Edition)
Cloud Atlas (2004)

Truth

“People are obscenities. Would rather be music than be a mass of tubes squeezing semisolids around itself for a few decades before becoming so dribblesome it'll no longer fucntion.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"Letters from Zedelghem", p. 470
Cloud Atlas (2004), Letters from Zedelghem (Part 2)

Music , People

“Boundaries between noise and sound are conventions, I see now. All boundaries are conventions, national ones too. One may transcend any convention, if only one can first conceive of doing so.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"Letters from Zedelghem", p. 460
Cloud Atlas (2004), Letters from Zedelghem (Part 2)

“What if trying to avoid the future is what triggers it all?”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery", p. 401
Cloud Atlas (2004), Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery (Part 2)

Future

“Once any tyranny becomes accepted as ordinary, its victory is assured.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish", p. 363
Cloud Atlas (2004), The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish (Part 2)

Victory

“Memories refused to fit, or fitted but came unglued. Even months later, how would I know if some major tranche of myself remained lost?”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish", p. 354
Cloud Atlas (2004), The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish (Part 2)

Memory

“He said the giant was a deity that offered salvation from a meaningless cycle of birth and rebirth, and perhaps the cracked stonework still possessed a lingering divinity.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"An Orison of Sonmi~451", p. 329
Cloud Atlas (2004), An Orison of Sonmi~451 (Part 2)

Birth

“Fantasy. Lunacy. All revolutions are, until they happen, then they are historical inevitabilities.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"An Orison of Sonmi~451", p. 326
Cloud Atlas (2004), An Orison of Sonmi~451 (Part 2)

“A Soul's value is the dollars therein.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"An Orison of Sonmi~451", p. 325
Cloud Atlas (2004), An Orison of Sonmi~451 (Part 2)

Soul

“[...] Smart'n'Civ'lize ain't nothin' to do with the color o' the skin, nay.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After", p. 258
Cloud Atlas (2004), Sloosha's Crossin' an' Evrythin' After

Color

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

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"An Orison of Sonmi~451", p. 209
Cloud Atlas (2004), An Orison of Sonmi~451 (Part 1)

Money , Game

“I became a scientist because... it's like panning for gold in a muddy torrent. Truth is the gold.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery", p. 133
Cloud Atlas (2004), Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery (Part 1)

Truth

“They can extinguish awareness by dumbing down education, owning TV stations, paying "guest fees" to leader writers, or just buying the media up. The media—and not just The Washington Post—is where democracies conduct their civil wars.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery", p. 124
Cloud Atlas (2004), Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery (Part 1)

Democracy , War , Education

“...the dizzying vividness of the images of places and people that the letters have unlocked. Images so vivid she can only call them memories.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery", p. 120
Cloud Atlas (2004), Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery (Part 1)

People , Memory

“Anything is true if enough people believe it is.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery", p. 99
Cloud Atlas (2004), Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery (Part 1)

People

“And if you threaten my reputation, oh well, I'll have to ruin yours!”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"Letters from Zedelghem", p. 76
Cloud Atlas (2004), Letters from Zedelghem (Part 1)
Original: (fr) Et si vous nuisez à ma réputation, eh bien, il faudra queue je ruine la vôtre!