David Mitchell (author) quotes - page 4

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 (author))
Sit down beat or two Hold out your hands Look. View quote
David Mitchell (author)
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. View quote
David Mitchell (author)
History admits no rules, only outcomes. What precipitates outcomes? Vicious acts & virtuous acts. What precipitates acts? Belief. View quote
David Mitchell (author)
What is this thing, "imagination?" View quote
David Mitchell (author)
Another war is always coming, Robert. They are never properly extinguished. What sparks war? 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... 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. View quote
David Mitchell (author)
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!" View quote
David Mitchell (author)
That love loves fidelity [is] a myth woven by men from their insecurities. View quote
David Mitchell (author)
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. View quote
David Mitchell (author)
Your version of the truth is the only one that matters. View quote
David Mitchell (author)
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 (author))
What if trying to avoid the future is what triggers it all? View quote
David Mitchell (author)
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? View quote
David Mitchell (author)
Memories refused to fit, or fitted but came unglued. Even months later, how would I know if some major tranche of myself remained lost? View quote
David Mitchell (author)
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. View quote
David Mitchell (author)
A Soul's value is the dollars therein. View quote
David Mitchell (author)
[...] Smart'n'Civ'lize ain't nothin' to do with the color o' the skin, nay. View quote
David Mitchell (author)
They can extinguish awareness by dumbing down education, owning TV stations, paying "guest fees" to leader writers, or just buying the media up. The media-and not just The Washington Post-is where democracies conduct their civil wars. View quote
David Mitchell (author)
...the dizzying vividness of the images of places and people that the letters have unlocked. Images so vivid she can only call them memories. View quote
David Mitchell (author)
Anything is true if enough people believe it is. View quote
David Mitchell (author)
People knelt in prayer, some moving their lips. Envy 'em, really I do. I envy God, too, privy to their secrets. 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. (David Mitchell (author))
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. View quote
David Mitchell (author)
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. View quote
David Mitchell (author)
I still haven't quite got used to eating live fish. View quote
David Mitchell (author)
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. View quote
David Mitchell (author)