David Mitchell: Trending quotes

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David Mitchell: 136 quotes3 likes

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

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

“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

“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)

“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)

“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.

“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]

“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)

“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.”

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)

“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)

“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)

“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)

“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)

“Patience's design flaw became obvious for the first time in my life: the outcome is decided not during the course of play but when the cards are shuffled, before the game even begins. How pointless is that?”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish", p. 368
Cloud Atlas (2004), The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish (Part 2)

“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)

“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)

“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)

“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)