Quotes by David Mitchell

Cynicism can blind one to subtler virtues

A wise man does not step betwixt the beast and his meat

Nonfiction that smells like fiction is neither.

I would agree with your statement that many of my protagonists are outsiders. I wonder if we all are, and even people who dont think they are, and theyre just better at masking it. When we shut our bedroom door at night, however well-integrated we think we are with the rest of society, maybe theres something illusory about that...

The sacred is a fine hiding place for the profane.

Any societys upper-crust is riddled with immorality, how else dyou think they keep their power? Reputation is king of the public sphere, not private. It is dethroned by public acts.

When Im in doubt - as I am now - I ask myself, What would Carl Jung do? - and act accordingly.

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. One night in Hiroshima it occurred to me that the moon behind a certain cloud formation looked very like a painkiller dissolving in a glass of water. I didn’t work toward that simile, it was simply there: I was mugged, as it were, by the similarity between these two very different things. Literary composition can be a similar process. The writer’s real world and the writer’s fictional world are compared, and these comparisons turned into text. But other times literary composition can be a plain old slog, and nothing to do with zones or inspiration. It’s world making and the peopling of those worlds, complete with time lines and heartache.

Books’ll be back,” Esther-in-Unalaq predicts. “Wait till the power grids start failing in the 2030s and the datavats get erased. It’s not far away. The future looks a lot like the past.

The Future,” says Ian, in a film-trailer voice. “Coming soon, to a Present near you.

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

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

Scholars discern motions of 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 and virtuous acts. What precipitates acts? Belief.

But you have read Madame Bovary? (Id never heard of her books.) No.

The art teachers scarlet book was called Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille. As the title suggests, Mr Dunwoody saw the bookd caught my attention, its about the history of opticians. What are you about?

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

I wish, he thinks, spoken words could be captured and kept in a locket.

Words are what you fight with but what you fight about is whether or not you’re afraid of them.

You say youre depressed - all i see is resilience. You are allowed to feel messed up and inside out. It doesnt mean youre defective - it just means youre human.

Prayer may be a placebo for the disease of helplessness, but placebos can make you feel better.