Top quotes by David Mitchell

People like to say that East Asians in general, and Japanese in particular, are not very expressive: there's that term 'inscrutable.' But often, Europeans just don't get the Asian codes. Believe me, the message is being expressed OK. Votes: 22

The art of the novelist is not unrelated to the illness of multiple personality disorder. It's a much milder form. But the better the book, the nearer to the padded cell you are. Votes: 17

When I was about 14, in about 1984, I decided to become a great poet. Faber & Faber was going to publish me, and when Ted Hughes read my first anthology he would invite me to Yorkshire for meat pies and mentorship. Votes: 16

The state of childhood resonates with life inside a fantasy novel. If you have no control over how you spend large chunks of your day, or are at the mercy of flawed giant beings, then the desire to bend the laws of the world by magic is strong and deep. Votes: 11

There's been very little writing about speech impediments, even though it's this huge psychological barrier. Votes: 10

When you're out of your own cultural context you have conversations with yourself that you just don't have at any other point in your life. When you're in a hotel room on the border between India and Nepal you can really discover things about yourself. Votes: 10

I often lose myself in the Sudoku-like challenges of making a book work. Votes: 10

The organs of Venus are familiar to all, but oh, my brothers, the organ of Saturn is the bladder. Votes: 10

Perhaps all human interaction is about wanting and getting. Votes: 9

Every relationship has its own language. It takes a long time to evolve and read one another. Just as it's true for people, it's also true on a national or cultural level. Votes: 9

Sometimes, comics will make the observation that it's not jokes that are funny, it's characters that are funny. And isn't that true! That's why I always kill jokes. I'm terrible at them, because I get the joke right, but I can't get the character right, and it just goes down like a lead balloon. Votes: 8

As long as our civilisation keeps trundling along generally forwards, then there is the possibility of a future where ethnicity is merely an interesting badge, not a uniform you can't take off. Votes: 8

Laughter is an anarchic blasphemy. Tyrants are wise to fear it. Votes: 7

A life can get knocked into a new orbit by a car crash, a lottery win or just a bleary-eyed consultant giving bad news in a calm voice. Votes: 6

I don't have problems starting writing. I have problems stopping. I'm one of the last dads to arrive at school to collect the kids, because I want to get this paragraph just right. Votes: 6

Your environment affects you wherever you are. Votes: 6

Probably in a parallel universe not far from here, I'm working for Nintendo. Votes: 6

Yay, when it came to faces, pretty lies was better'n scabbin' true" Votes: 6

Any adaptation is a translation, and there is such a thing as an unreadably faithful translation; and I believe a degree of reinterpretation for the new language may be not only inevitable but desirable. Votes: 5

Japanese food makes me feel particularly good. Votes: 5

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. Votes: 5

Have you noticed, said John, how countries call theirs 'sovereign nuclear deterrents,' but call the other countries' ones 'weapons of mass destruction'? Votes: 4

Men marry women hoping they'll never change. Women marry men hoping they will. Votes: 4

This "Not Today" attitude of yours is a cancer. Cancer of the character. It stunts your growth. Votes: 4

I think all writers of my age who are brought up on films probably by the age of 16 have seen many more films than they have read classics of literature. We can't help but be influenced by film. Film has got some great tricks that it's taught writers. Votes: 3

I still haven't quite got used to eating live fish. Votes: 2

I'm not a great deep political thinker. Votes: 2

Always, it is the poor people who pay. And always, it is the poor people's women who pay the most. Votes: 1

Two old people in a room devoid of furniture, steam rising from their teacups. They were motionless and expressionless. Waiting for something. I wish I could go into their room and sit down with them. I'd give them my Rolex for that. I wish they would smile, and pour me a cup of jasmine tea. I wish the world was like that. Votes: 1

Hey, metaphysics seminar is on the roof. Just take the elevator up and keep walking until you hit the sidewalk. Anything is true if enough people believe it." Votes: 1

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." Votes: 0

The sun was deaf'nin' so high up, yay, it roared an' time streamed from it." Votes: 0

An' that cold hand o' wind was Old Georgie's hand, yay, the devil what was standin' there wavin' a crookit spoon." Votes: 0

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 west an' the compass an' the atlas, yay, only the atlas o' clouds." Votes: 0

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" Votes: 0

I am, emphatically. Mental illness triggered by xperimental error." Votes: 0

To enslave an individual troubles your consciences, Archivist, but to enslave a clone is no more troubling than owning the latest six-wheeler ford, ethically. Because you cannot discern our differences, you assume we have none. But make no mistake: even same-stem fabricants cultured in the same wombtank are as singular as snowflakes. Votes: 0

I really wish they hadn't made the set out of asbestos. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

To fool a judge, feign fascination, but to bamboozle the whole court, feign boredom. Votes: 0

I rarely ever put my head above the rampart and see where this big lumbering behemoth called 'global literature' is going. Votes: 0

Birdsong foamed in the hour-before-dawn garden. Votes: 0

How vulgar, this hankering after immortality, how vain, how false. Composers are merely scribblers of cave paintings. One writes music because winter is eternal and because, if one didn't, the wolves and blizzards would be at one's throat all the sooner. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

I lost my balance when the train pulled away, but a human crumple zone buffered my fall. We stayed like that, half fallen. Diagonal People. Votes: 0

...now I'm a spent firework; but at least I've been a firework. Votes: 0

Don't bemoan your misspent life quite yet. Forgive me for flaunting my experience, but you have no conception of what a misspent life constitutes. Votes: 0

Maybe then you comprehend, speaking one language only is a prison! Votes: 0

Beyond the Indian hamlet, upon a forlorn strand, I happened on a trail of recent footprints. Votes: 0

I...asked why purebloods despised me so. He replied, 'What if the difference between social strata stem not from genomics or inherent xcellence or even dollars, but merely differences in knowledge? Would this not mean the whole Pyramid is built on shifting sands?... fabricants are mirrors held up to purebloods' consciences; what purebloods see reflected there sickens them. So they blame you for holding up the mirror Votes: 0

Sometimes the fluffy bunny of incredulity zooms around the bend so rapidly that the greyhound of language is left, agog, in the starting cage. Votes: 0

As long as you can Houdini your way out of the Sisyphean constraints then originality happens. Votes: 0

Me, I want to bloody kick this moronic bloody world in the bloody teeth over and over till it bloody understands that not hurting people is ten bloody thousand times more bloody important than being right. Votes: 0

A half-read book is a half-finished love affair. Votes: 0

Truth is singular. Its 'versions' are mistruths. Votes: 0

- This isn't an interrogation or a trail. Your version of the truth is the only thing that matters. -Truth is singular. It's 'versions' are mistruths. Votes: 0

I think words operate like musical notes that the eyeball hears. Votes: 0

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 function. Votes: 0

Our lives are not our own. We are bound to others, past and present, and by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

Better a soulless clone... than a souled roach. Votes: 0

Killing depends on circumstances, as you'd expect, whether it's a cold, planned murder, or a hot death in a fight, or inspired by honor or a more shameful motive. However many times you kill, though, it's the first that matters. It's a man's first blood that banishes him from the world of the ordinary. Votes: 0

Only the trombonist played on. That's trombonists for you. Votes: 0

Southly thru shrubby heath we tromped now till we got to wideway. Wideway I'd heard o' from storymen an' here it was, an open, long, flat o' roadstone. SAplin's'n'bush was musclin' up but wondersome'n'wild was that windy space. Votes: 0

You have to know someone intimately to be able to love them. So love at first sight is a contradiction in terms. Unless in that first sight there's some sort of mystical gigabyte downloading of information from one mind into the other. Votes: 0

A dinery server behaving like a pureblood attracts trouble; trouble attracts blame; blame demands a scrapegoat. Votes: 0

The art teacher's scarlet book was called Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille. 'As the title suggests,' Mr Dunwoody saw the book'd caught my attention, 'it's about the history of opticians. What are you about? Votes: 0

Fantasy. Lunacy.All revolutions are, until they happen, then they are historical inevitabilities. Votes: 0

Y' is about the weakest letter of all. 'Y' can't make up its mind if it's a vowel or a consonant, can it? Votes: 0

My books are anti-absolutist and deeply distrustful of any religious stance that precludes the validity of any other. Votes: 0

Survival often demands our courage. Votes: 0

Do," said Louisa finally, "whatever you can't not do. Votes: 0

Implausible truth can serve one better than plausible fiction Votes: 0

What man ain't the honestest cove in his own eyes?" Grote's round face is a bronze moon in the dark. "'Tain't good intentions what paves the road to hell: it's self-justifyin's. Votes: 0

After ten pages I felt that Nietzsche was reading me, not I him. Votes: 0

The truth of a myth, your Honor, is not its words but its patterns. Votes: 0

The library refused many downloads, of course, but I succeeded with two Optimists translated from the Late English, Orwell and Huxley; Votes: 0

If consumers found fulfillment at any meaningful level, she extemporized, corpocracy would be finished. Votes: 0

So winners, Hae-Joo proposed, are the real losers because they learn nothing? What, then, are losers? Winners? Votes: 0

Try this for deviancy: fabricants are mirrors held up to purebloods' conscience; what purebloods see reflected there sickens them. So they blame you for holding the mirror."I hid my shock by asking when purebloods might blame themselves.Mephi replied, "History suggests, not until they are made to. Votes: 0

The double-crossed, might-have-been history of my country is not the study of what actually took place here: it's the study of historians' studies. . . .Memories are their own descendants masquerading as the ancestors of the present. Votes: 0

Such narrative arcs make good movies but shitty existences. Votes: 0

We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love. Votes: 0

When you write it, don't write it in the manner of a spooky story. Don't try to give an explanation. Just say that I don't know what to make of it, just write it like I tell it, so the reader can make up his own mind. Votes: 0

Politicians and sports coaches both need to be smart enough to master the game, but dumb enough to think it matters. Votes: 0

Integrity is a bugger, it really is. Lying can get you into difficulties, but to really wind up in the crappers try telling nothing but the truth. Votes: 0

Teachers're always using that "in your own words." I hate that. Authors knit their sentences tight. It's their job. Why make us unpick them, just to put it back together more shonkily? How're you s'posed to say Kapellmeister if you can't say Kapellmeister? Votes: 0

Any society's upper-crust is riddled with immorality, how else d'you think they keep their power? Reputation is king of the public sphere, not private. It is dethroned by public acts. Votes: 0

People buy such bollocks at museums. They don't know what else to do once they're there. Votes: 0

How gleefully life shreds our well crafted plans. Votes: 0

Our ancestors built temples for their gods. We build department stores. Votes: 0

Hey, metaphysics seminar is on the roof. Just take the elevator up and keep walking until you hit the sidewalk. Anything is true if enough people believe it. Votes: 0

... 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. Votes: 0

As for reading, I wish I had a magic door to a library where I could go in, read for days and days, and come back in the same minute I left. I'm still looking for the door. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

Strip back the beliefs pasted on by governesses, schools, and states, you find indelible truths at one's core. Votes: 0

The sacred is a fine hiding place for the profane. Votes: 0

Wars do not combust without warning. They begin as little fires over the horizon. Wars approach. A wise man watches for the smoke, and prepares to vacate the neighborhood just like Ayrs and Jocasta. My worry is that the next war will be so big, nowhere with a decent restaurant will be left untouched. Votes: 0

I'd love to know how Dad saw me when I was 6. I'd love to know a hundred things. When a parent dies, a filing cabinet full of all the fascinating stuff also ceases to exist. I never imagined how hungry I'd be one day to look inside it. Votes: 0

Trees're always a relief, after people. Votes: 0

At dawn the waves looked like mountain ranges tipped with gold as sunbeams slanted low under burgundy clouds. Votes: 0

A volley of hailstones began abruptly, filled the woods with a frenzied percussion & ended on the sudden. Votes: 0

One writes music because winter is eternal and because, if one didn't, the wolves and blizzards will be at one's throat all the sooner. Votes: 0

Disco's are tricky. You look a total wally if you dance too early but after one crucial song tips the disco over, you look a sad saddo if you don't. Votes: 0

Sometimes language can't even read the music of meaning. Votes: 0

Autumn is leaving its mellowness behind for its spiky, rotted stage. Don't remember summer even saying goodbye. Votes: 0

...there ain't no journey what don't change you some. Votes: 0

Every nowhere is somewhere[...] Votes: 0

Go to hell, Willy, our souls eat poetry, but one has seven deadly sins to feed! Votes: 0

It's a small world. It keeps recrossing itself. Votes: 0

In the 1970s and 1980s there was so little decent fiction for young people, but we're now in a golden age that shows no sign of fading. Philip Pullman, J. K. Rowling, Lemony Snicket are only three of the best known among a good number of equals. Votes: 0

Oh, diplomacy ... it 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. Votes: 0

The her that lived in her looked out through her eyes, through my eyes, and at the me that lives in me. Votes: 0

True knowledge without xperience is food without sustenance Votes: 0

... but it is attitude, not years, that condemns one to the ranks of the Undead, or else proffers salvation. In the domain of the young there dwells many an Undead soul. They rush about so, their inner putrefaction is concealed for a few decades, that is all. Votes: 0

Unlimited power in the hands of limited people always leads to cruelty. Votes: 0

I believe there is another world waiting for us. A better world. And I'll be waiting for you there. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

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 west an' the compass an' the atlas, yay, only the atlas o' clouds. Votes: 0

It's true that stammerers can become more adept at sentence construction. Votes: 0

Perhaps where text slides toward ambiguity, film inclines to specificity. A novel contains as many versions of itself as it has readers, whereas a film's final cut vaporizes every other way it might have been made. Votes: 0

For me, novels coalesce into being, rather than arrive fully formed. Votes: 0

False modesty can be worse than arrogance. Votes: 0

When I think about it, I'm happily bewildered that people will preorder my books They'll preorder me. What a lucky guy! Votes: 0

When I talk about my artist parents, people imagine a bohemian environment and think, 'Aha, so that's where he gets it from!' But we were as white, straight, and middle-class as the next family on our white, straight, middle-class housing estate. Votes: 0

If the human condition were the periodic table, maybe love would be hydrogen at No. 1. Death would be helium at No. 2. Power, I reckon, would be where oxygen is. Votes: 0

Many children are natural fantasists, I think, perhaps because their imaginations have yet to be clobbered into submission by experience. Votes: 0

The words 'maybe' and 'perhaps' are literally the same - the flavor is the same, the educational level is the same. But you just know when to use maybe and when to use perhaps. I think it's because of this: You get to know the tastes or musical tastes of words themselves, and this informs your choice, whether you use them or not. Votes: 0

I'm not from a milieu where high-register language or philosophical ideas were welcome. Votes: 0

I think it's natural for youth to be drawn to newness: The world is still new for them. Votes: 0

Sometimes I think that creativity is a matter of seeing, or stumbling over, unobvious similarities between things - like composing a fresh metaphor, but on a more complex scale. Votes: 0

Loneliness is an integral part of travelling. I used to think it was the downside to travelling, but now I realise it is a necessary educative part of it to be embraced. Votes: 0

I've become a less brave traveller since I became a dad, but in the past I was more foolhardy than brave. Votes: 0

There's a disease that young writers are susceptible to, which is, I will do this because I can - hubris, I suppose - without stopping to work out why. Votes: 0

A novelist needs to know his own strong points and weak points. Votes: 0

I'm certainly a plot and character man. Themes, structure, style - they're valid components of a novel and you can't complete the book without them. But I think what propels me as a reader is plot and character. Votes: 0

Write something every single day, even if it's just three lines. And it doesn't matter if it's any good - just write something every day. Votes: 0

I can't bear living in this huge beautiful world and not try to imitate it as best I can. Votes: 0

I had a happy childhood. Votes: 0

Travel far enough, you meet yourself. Votes: 0

Gosh. The subjunctive is always the first to go. Votes: 0

I believe death is only a door. One closes, and another opens. If I were to imagine heaven, I would imagine a door opening. And he would be waiting for me there. Votes: 0

Books don't offer real escape, but they can stop a mind scratching itself raw. Votes: 0

Love's pure free joy when it works, but when it goes bad you pay for the good hours at loan-shark prices. Votes: 0

The truth of a myth...is not in its words but its patterns. Votes: 0

You say you're 'depressed' - all i see is resilience. You are allowed to feel messed up and inside out. It doesn't mean you're defective - it just means you're human. Votes: 0

Once any tyranny becomes accepted as ordinary, its victory is assured. Votes: 0

I am going to tell you a secret. Everything is about wanting. Everything. Things happen because of people wanting. Watch closely, and you’ll see what I mean. Votes: 0

My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops? Votes: 0

'Y' is about the weakest letter of all. 'Y' can't make up its mind if it's a vowel or a consonant, can it? Votes: 0

In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul; for the human species, selfishness is extinction. Votes: 0

The better organized the state, the duller its humanity. Votes: 0

How lazily "xperts" dismiss what they fail to understand! Votes: 0

By each crime and every kindness, we birth our future. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

What is any ocean but a multitude of drops? Votes: 0

If you show someone something you've written, you give them a sharpened stake, lie down in your coffin, and say, ‘When you’re ready’. Votes: 0

Little girls are like old cats. If they don't like you nothing on Earth will make them pretend to. Votes: 0

We looked at each other for the last time; nothing is as eloquent as nothing. Votes: 0

Three or four times only in my youth did I glimpse the Joyous Isles, before they were lost to fogs, depressions, cold fronts, ill winds, and contrary tides... I mistook them for adulthood. Assuming they were a fixed feature in my life's voyage, I neglected to record their latitude, their longitude, their approach. Young ruddy fool. 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. Votes: 0

Time is what stops history happening at once; time is the speed at which the past disappears. Votes: 0

All revolutions are the sheerest fantasy until they happen; then they become historical inevitabilities. Votes: 0

A book you finish reading is not the same book it was before you read it. Votes: 0

I recently bought a cat, but took it back a day later because our personalities clashed. Votes: 0

Mother used to say escape is never further than the nearest book. Votes: 0

...it’s not just the person who fills a house, it’s their I’ll be back later!s, their toothbrushes and unused hats and coats, their belongingnesses. Votes: 0

She has to lose her pre-Copernican view of a universe revolving around herself. Votes: 0

Lunatics are writers whose works write them. Votes: 0

One's ribs shouldn't be prison bars. Votes: 0

If losers can exploit what their adversaries teach them, yes, losers can become winners in the long term. Votes: 0

A weapon men use against women is the refusal to take them seriously. Votes: 0

Pain is strong, aye - but friends' eyes, more strong." I told him that he knows next to nothing about me & I know nothing about him. He jabbed at his eyes & jabbed at mine, as if that single gesture were ample explanation. Votes: 0

It'll be all right." Julia's gentleness makes it worse. "In the end, Jace." "It doesn't feel very all right." "That's because it's not the end. Votes: 0

Leaves turned to soil beneath my feet. Thus it is, trees eat themselves. Votes: 0

Dreams are all I have ever truly owned. Votes: 0

Why ask a question whose answer would demand ten more questions? Votes: 0

The spirit was willing but the flesh was weak. Votes: 0

clocks in disagreement are worse than no clock at all. Votes: 0

Assured her I’ve never loved anyone except myself and have no intention of starting now, Votes: 0

Wars are never cured, they just go into remission for a few years. Votes: 0

Whoever dies with the most stuff wins. Votes: 0

I have always preferred maps to books. They don't answer you back. Votes: 0

Reality is the page. Life is the word. Votes: 0

This isn't an interrogation or a trail. Your version of the truth is the only thing that matters. -Truth is singular. It's 'versions' are mistruths. Votes: 0

I wonder if you encountered this dictum first spoken by a twentieth-century statesman: "An abyss cannot be crossed in two steps. Votes: 0

...A mountain you're plannin' on climbin' ain't the same as the one you ain't. It ain't so pretty... Votes: 0

What sparks wars? 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. You can see the will to power in bedrooms, kitchens, factories, unions and the borders of states. Listen to this and remember it. 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. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

Oh, bein' young ain't easy 'cos ev'rythin' you're puzzlin'n'anxin' you're puzzlin'n'anxin' it for the first time. Votes: 0

I hear my father-in-law's response..."Naïve, dreaming Adam. He who would do battle with the many-headed hydra of human nature must pay a world of pain & his family must pay it along with him! & only as you gasp your dying breath shall you understand, your life amounted to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean!" Yet what is any ocean but a multitude of drops? Votes: 0

The healthy can't understand the emptied, the broken. Votes: 0

A life spent shaping a world I want Jackson to inherit, not one I fear Jackson shall inherit, this strikes me as a life worth the living. Votes: 0

Courage is the highest quality for a soldier, but technology is a fine substitute. Votes: 0

The uncreated and the dead exist solely in our actual and virtual pasts. Votes: 0

It's true, reading too many novels makes you go blind. Votes: 0

Perpetual encagement endows any mirage of salvation with credibility. Votes: 0

I pass through many Me's in the course of my day, each one selfish with his time. The Lying-in-Bed me and the Enjoying-the-Hot-Shower Me are particularly selfish. The Late Me loathes the pair of them. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

Anticipating the end of the world is humanity's oldest passtime Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

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... Votes: 0

Words are what you fight with but what you fight about is whether or not you're afraid of them. Votes: 0

The human world is made of stories, not people. Votes: 0

If I want to act relaxed, it's going to take all my cunning, skill and concentration. Votes: 0

Two people who are a little bit deluded in each other's favour. That's what love is, isn't it? Votes: 0

The body is the outermost layer of the mind. Votes: 0

The most malicious god is the god of the counted chicken. Votes: 0

This isn’t lust. Lust wants, does the obvious Love is greedier. Love wants round-the-clock care; protection; rings, vows, joint accounts; scented candles on birthdays; life insurance. Babies. Love’s a dictator. Votes: 0

The best way to get out of debt is not to seek to get out of debt, but to seek to create wealth Votes: 0

Human hunger birthed the Civlize, but human hunger killed it too. Votes: 0

Don't remember summer even saying goodbye. Votes: 0

There's a link between bigotry and bad spelling. Votes: 0

Italians give their city sexes, and they all agree that the sex for a particular city is quite correct, but none of them can explain why. I love that. London's middle-aged and male, respectably married but secretly gay. Votes: 0

Writing is such a damn lonely sickness. Votes: 0

Ive never had cocaine. I work in showbusiness and no one has ever offered me cocaine. Can you believe that? It makes me worry Im not always the life and soul of the party that I feel like in my head, Votes: 0

Wars do not combust without warning. They begin as little fires over the horizon. Wars approach. A wise man watches for the smoke, and prepares to vacate the neighborhood, just like Ayrs and Jocasta. My worry is that the next war will be so big, nowhere with a decent restaurant will be left untouched. Votes: 0

I got a rejection letter from an editor at HarperCollins, who included a report from his professional reader. This report shredded my first-born novel, laughed at my phrasing, twirled my lacy pretensions around and gobbed into the seething mosh pit of my stolen clichés. As I read the report, the world became very quiet and stopped rotating. What poisoned me was the fact that the report's criticisms were all absolutely true. The sound of my landlady digging in the garden got the world moving again. I slipped the letter into the trash... knowing I'd remember every word. Votes: 0

Time is the speed at which the past decays. Votes: 0

What is "poker"? A card game where abler liars take money off less able liars. Votes: 0

Freedom!- is the fatuous jingle of our civilization, but only those deprived of it have the barest inkling re: what the stuff actually is. Votes: 0

Power, time, gravity, love. The forces that really kick ass are all invisible. Votes: 0

I understand now that boundaries between noise and sound are conventions. All boundaries are conventions, waiting to be transcended. One may transcend any convention if only one can first conceive of doing so. Votes: 0

The earth's a door, if you press your ear against it. Votes: 0

I am, emphatically. Mental illness triggered by xperimental error. Votes: 0

The Revelation of Sonmi 451 To be is to be perceived, and so to know thyself is only possible through the eyes of the other. The nature of our immortal lives is in the consequences of our words and deeds, that go on and are pushing themselves throughout all time. - Our lives are not our own. From womb to tomb, we are bound to others, past and present, and by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future. Votes: 0

I feel like something important has happened to meIs this possible? Votes: 0

Good moods’re as fragile as eggs...Bad moods’re as fragile as bricks. Votes: 0

Secrets affect you more than you’d think. You lie to keep them hidden. You steer talk away from them. You worry someone’ll discover yours and tell the world. You think you are in charge of the secret, but isn’t it the secret who’s actually using you? Votes: 0

Words are very powerful and can lead anyone reading them or hearing them, into contemplation and insight. How the mind follows suit is rarely palpable or expected. This impact is not a matter of metaphysical effects nor of an unexplainable phenomenon. It’s simply part of being human. Votes: 0

You can maintain power over people, as long as you give them something. Rob a man of everything, and that man will no longer be in your power. Votes: 0

But no, we cross, crisscross, and recross our old tracks like figure skaters. Votes: 0

I added 'writers' to my list of people not to trust. They make everything up. Votes: 0

Historically, unfortunately, race seems to be the major division that humanity has imposed on itself, a way of subdividing into smaller groups. Votes: 0

If swans weren't real, myths'd make them up. Votes: 0

If only,’ Shiroyama dreams, ‘human beings were not masks behind masks behind masks. If only this world was a clean board of lines and intersections. If only time was a sequence of considered moves and not a chaos of slippages and blunders. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

The rain's innumerable hooves spatter on the streets and roofs. Votes: 0

Why does any martyr cooperate with his judases?...We see a game beyond the endgame...As Seneca warned Nero: No matter how many of us you kill, you will never kill your successor. Votes: 0

One fine day a predatory world shall consume itself. Votes: 0

Only professional diplomats, inveterate idiots and women view diplomacy as a long-term substitute for war. Votes: 0

The song instantly insisted it'd never existed. Votes: 0

War's an auction where whoever can pay the most in damage and still be standing wins. Votes: 0

Human beings need to watch out for reasonless niceness too. It's never reasonless and its reason's not usually nice. Votes: 0

Nothing is as eloquent as nothing. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

The mind abhors a vacancy & is wont to people it with phantoms. Votes: 0

The mind has a mind of its own. It shows us pictures. Pictures of the past and the might-one-day-be. This mind's mind exerts its own will, too, and has its own voice. Votes: 0

So little is actually worthy of belief or disbelief. Better to strive to coexist than seek to disapprove . . . Votes: 0

Whoever opined "Money can't buy you happiness" obviously had far too much of the stuff. Votes: 0

An idler and a sluggard are as different as a gourmand and a glutton. Votes: 0

Memories are their own descendents masquerading as the ancestors of the present. Votes: 0

I love HBO productions, actually, like 'The Wire.' Votes: 0

I can write pretty much anywhere. Votes: 0

I remain thankful to God for all his mercies. Votes: 0

If we believe that humanity may transcend tooth and 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. Votes: 0

We are only what we know, and I wished to be so much more than I was, sorely. Votes: 0

Peace, though beloved of our Lord, is a cardinal virtue only if your neighbors share your conscience. Votes: 0

One cannot pass by without thinking of the density of men in the ground. Votes: 0

Why fight the 'natural' (oh, weaselly word!) order of things? Why? Because of this--one fine day, a purely predatory world shall consume itself. In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul; for the human species, selfishness is extinction. Votes: 0

Taro taught me that people respect spirit, but even cowards don't respect cowards. Votes: 0

Hate eats the hater the way ogres eat little boys. Votes: 0

Creation never ceased on the sixth evening, it occurs to the young man. Creation unfolds around us, despite us and through us at the speed of days and nights. And we call it love. Votes: 0

The music provokes a sharp longing the music soothes. Votes: 0

I wonder how many years Suga has been carrying his curse around with him. I forget that other people in the world have broken parts too. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

How could I know a famished heart will eat its mind? Can kill its body? Votes: 0

There are so many cities in every single city. Votes: 0

If your words're true, they're armed. Votes: 0

Probably" is a word with an emergency ejector seat. Votes: 0

Lying's wrong, but when the world spins backwards, a small wrong may be a big right. Votes: 0

I have always unswervingly held, that God, in our civilizing world, manifests Himself not in the miracles of biblical age, but in progress. It is progress that leads humanity up the ladder towards the God-head. No Jacob's ladder this, no, but rather Civilization's Ladder, if you will. Votes: 0

The weak are meat the strong do eat. Votes: 0

why human beings despise what is beautiful and good, and seek to destroy the things they need the most Votes: 0

Dead things show you what you’ll be too one day. Votes: 0

Do ants get headaches? Votes: 0

If, by happiness, you mean the absence of adversity I and all fabricants are the happiest stratum in corpocracy as genomicists insist. However, if happiness means the conquest of adversity or a sense of purpose, or the xercise of one’s will to power, then of all Nea So Copros’s slaves we surely are the most miserable. Votes: 0

Music’s a wood you walk through. Votes: 0

…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. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

Often I think boys don’t become men. Boys just get papier-mâchéd inside a man’s mask. Sometimes you can tell the boy is still in there. Votes: 0

Men invented money Women invented mutual aid Votes: 0

If you’re in your life, chance. Viewed from the outside, like a book you’re reading, it’s fate all the way. Votes: 0

Have you noticed," said John, "how countries call theirs 'sovereign nuclear deterrents,' but call the other countries' ones 'weapons of mass destruction'? Votes: 0

I’m scared of the future. I’m scared of the past. I’m nervous at the moment. Votes: 0

Spent the fortnight gone in the music room reworking my year's fragments into a 'sextet for overlapping soloists': piano, clarinet, 'cello, flute, oboe, and violin, each in its own language of key, scale, and color. In the first set, each solo is interrupted by its successor; in the second, each interruption is recontinued, in order. Revolutionary or gimmicky? Shan't know until it's finished, and by then it'll be too late. Votes: 0

The soul is a verb." He impales a lit candle on a spike. "Not a noun. Votes: 0

War may be an auction for countries. For soldiers it's a lottery. Votes: 0

But you have read Madame Bovary?' (I'd never heard of her books.) 'No. Votes: 0

People b'lief the world is built so an' tellin'em it ain't so caves the roof on their heads 'n'maybe yours. Votes: 0

This world, he thinks, contains just one masterpiece, and that is itself. Votes: 0

Humans live in a pit of cheating, exploiting, hurting, incarcerating. Every time, the species wastes some part of what it could be. This waste is poisonous. Votes: 0

The learnin' mind is the livin' mind... an' any sort o' smart is truesome smart, old smart or new, high smart or low. Votes: 0

Women, O, women! They'll find the baddest meanin' in your words & hold it up. Votes: 0

Act', implores the Ghost of Future Regret. 'I shan't give you another chance'. [and so Jacob does] 'Damned fool,' groans the Demon of Present Regret. 'What have you done? Votes: 0

The human world is made of stories, not people. The people the stories use to tell themselves are not to be blamed Votes: 0

maybe the meaning of life lies in looking for it Votes: 0

I'm a novelist, that's how I make my livelihood, and I concentrate on the novels. Votes: 0

I'm from a time and place where bigheadedness was a really savage crime, and you'd get cut down for it by your peers and parents. Votes: 0

I think we think in terms of stories. Votes: 0

I think the story is the most ancient form of human entertainment. Votes: 0

Writing is probably one-fifth coming up with the stuff, and four-fifths self-editing again and again and again. Votes: 0

. . .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. Votes: 0

Folks with most to complain about seldom complain most. Votes: 0

Dreams are shores where the ocean of spirit meets the land of matter. Dreams are beaches where the yet-to-be, the once-were, the will-never-be may walk awhile with the still are. Votes: 0

The world never stops unmaking what the world never stops making. But who says the world has to make sense? Votes: 0

People pontificate, "Suicide is selfishness." Career churchmen like Pater go a step further and call in a cowardly assault on the living. Oafs argue this specious line for varying reason: to evade fingers of blame, to impress one's audience with one's mental fiber, to vent anger, or just because one lacks the necessary suffering to sympathize. Cowardice is nothing to do with it - suicide takes considerable courage. Japanese have the right idea. No, what's selfish is to demand another to endure an intolerable existence, just to spare families, friends, and enemies a bit of soul-searching. Votes: 0

Eva. Every day I've climbed up the belfry chanting a lucky chant at one syllable per beat, "To-day-to-day-let-her-be-here-to-day-to-day. Votes: 0

If war's first victim is truth, its second is clerical efficiency. Votes: 0

Faith, the least exclusive club on Earth, has the craftiest doorman. Votes: 0

History admits no rules; only outcomes. Votes: 0

Torturous advances won over generations can be lost by a single stroke of a myopic president's pen or a vainglorious general's sword. Votes: 0

We are both busy people, so let's cut the small talk. Votes: 0

Who was blowing on the nape of my neck. Votes: 0

Your turn has come to sift through the dreck of humanity for rare specks of originality Votes: 0

over 85% of all statistics are made up on the spot. Votes: 0

These jokes the world plays, they're not funny at all. Votes: 0