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.
David MitchellMy life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?
David MitchellI 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.
David MitchellThe learnin' mind is the livin' mind, Meronym said, an any sort o'Smart is truesome Smart, old Smart or new high Smart or low.
David MitchellWar's an auction where whoever can pay the most in damage and still be standing wins.
David MitchellIf I want to act relaxed, it's going to take all my cunning, skill, and concentration.
David MitchellI 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.
David MitchellI 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?
David MitchellShe 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.
David MitchellThe 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.
David MitchellHow 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.
David MitchellHuman beings need to watch out for reasonless niceness too. It's never reasonless and its reason's not usually nice.
David MitchellMany children are natural fantasists, I think, perhaps because their imaginations have yet to be clobbered into submission by experience.
David MitchellTime is what stops history happening at once; time is the speed at which the past disappears.
David MitchellAs 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.
David MitchellThe best way to get out of debt is not to seek to get out of debt, but to seek to create wealth
David MitchellWars 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.
David MitchellWhoever opined "Money can't buy you happiness" obviously had far too much of the stuff.
David MitchellAlways, it is the poor people who pay. And always, it is the poor people's women who pay the most.
David MitchellMother 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.
David MitchellA mountain you're plannin' on climbin' ain't the same as the one you ain't. It ain't so pretty.
David MitchellWrite 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.
David MitchellOh, bein' young ain't easy 'cos ev'rythin' you're puzzlin'n'anxin' you're puzzlin'n'anxin' it for the first time.
David MitchellStrip back the beliefs pasted on by governesses, schools, and states, you find indelible truths at one's core. Rome'll decline and fall again, Cortés'll lay Tenochtitlán to waste again, and later, Ewing will sail again, Adrian'll be blown to pieces again, you and I'll sleep under the Corsican stars again, I'll come to Bruges again, fall in and out of love with Eva again, you'll read this letter again, the sun'll grow cold again. Nietzsche's gramophone record. When it ends, the Old One plays it again, for an eternity of eternities.
David MitchellThe 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.
David MitchellWhat wouldn't I give now for a never-changing map of the ever-constant ineffable? To possess, as it were, an atlas of clouds.
David MitchellI 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.
David MitchellIf you show someone something you've written, you give them a sharpened stake, lie down in your coffin, and say, ‘When you’re ready’.
David MitchellTo 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.
David Mitchell