Quotes by David Mitchell

You only value something if you know it’ll end.

When a woman is interested in you, she’ll let you know; if not, there’s no aftershave, gift, or line you can spin to make her change her mind.

Only I dont close my eyes these days, because it hurts too much when I open them.

But this isnt a ghost story: the ghost is in the background, where she has to be. If she was in the foreground shed be a person.

Lunatics are writers whose works write them, Bat. Not all lunatics are writers, Mrs. Rey-believe me. But most writers are lunatics, Bat-believe me. The human world is made up of stories, not people.

When you write it, dont write it in the manner of a spooky story. Dont try to give an explanation. Just say that I dont know what to make of it, just write it like I tell it, so the reader can make up his own mind.

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

Rootlessness, I opine, is the twenty-first century norm.Youre not wrong and thats why were in the shit were in, mate. If you belong nowhere, why give a tinkers toss about anywhere?

Taro taught me that people respect spirit, but even cowards dont respect cowards.

A writer flirts with schizophrenia, nurtures synesthesia, and embraces obsessive-compulsive disorder. Your art feeds on you, your soul, and, yes, to a degree, your sanity. Writing novels worth reading will bugger up your mind, jeopardize your relationships, and distend your life. You have been warned.

The novelist is more like a pregnant woman who delivers her own child unaided. A messy procedure, with lots of groaning.

You groan and shake your head, Sixsmith, I know, but you smile too, which is why I love you.

Holly rubs her temples. “Are we talking ... vampires?”Arkady groans. “On, the V-word! Here it comes again.

Such narrative arcs make good movies but shitty existences.

But thought has no eyelids to close or ears to block...

Patiences 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?

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.

I watched the stars and thought of other lives.

Survival often demands our courage.

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.