David Mitchell: Trending quotes

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David Mitchell: 136 quotes3 likes

“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)

“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, 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.

“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.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

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

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

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

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

“Faith, the least exclusive club on Earth, has the craftiest doorman. Every time I've stepped through its wide-open doorway, I find myself stepping out on the street again.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"Letters from Zedelghem", p. 75
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)

“"But it's been done a hundred times before!" -- As if there could be anything not done a hundred thousand times between Aristophanes and Andrew Void Webber! As if Art is the What, not the How!”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish", p. 312 (Nook edition)
Cloud Atlas (2004)

“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)

“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)

“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

“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)

“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)

“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)

“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)

“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)

“If losers can xploit [sic] what their adversaries teach them, yes, losers can become winners in the long time.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"An Orison of Sonmi~451", p. 202 (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)