“But an ink brush, she thinks, is a skeleton key for a prisoner's mind.” — David Mitchell Prisoner Copy Share Image
I recently bought a cat, but took it back a day later because our personalities clashed. — David Mitchell Cat Copy Share Image
“After the nuclear war, kids like them’ll rule what’s left. It’ll be hell.” — David Mitchell Children Copy Share Image
We are only what we know, and I wished to be so much more than I was, sorely. — David Mitchell Copy Share Image
“I find a certain comfort," confesses Marinus, "in humanity's helplessness.” — David Mitchell Comfort Copy Share Image
Words are what you fight with but what you fight about is whether or not you're afraid of them. — David Mitchell Copy Share Image
“Women, oh, women! They'll find the baddest meanin' in your words an' hold it up, sayin', Look what you attacked me with!” — David Mitchell Copy Share Image
“I said something about reading not being knowledge, about knowledge without experience being food without sustenance.” — David Mitchell Education Copy Share Image
“A no-name place, as far as I could see, but it had a miserable cafe-cum-garage-cum-funeral parlor shared by a gang of silent… — David Mitchell Death Copy Share Image
“Souls cross ages like clouds cross skies, and though a cloud's shape nor hue nor size don't stay the same, it's still… — David Mitchell Soul Copy Share Image
If the human condition were the periodic table, maybe love would be hydrogen at No. 1. Death would be helium at No.… — David Mitchell Copy Share Image
Have you noticed," said John, "how countries call theirs 'sovereign nuclear deterrents,' but call the other countries' ones 'weapons of mass destruction'? — David Mitchell Country Copy Share Image
“Now I seen Mauna Kena from Honokaa b'fore, o'course, but a mountain you're planning on climbin' ain't the same as the one… — David Mitchell Copy Share Image
Any adaptation is a translation, and there is such a thing as an unreadably faithful translation; and I believe a degree of… — David Mitchell Adaptation Copy Share Image
“Luisa rolls her napkin into a compact ball. "I ask three simple questions. How did he get that power? How is he… — David Mitchell Copy Share Image
“Try this for deviancy: fabricants are mirrors held up to purebloods’ consciences; what purebloods see reflected there sickens them. So they blame… — David Mitchell Mirrors Copy Share Image
“The silences after his last gasp were sung together by a blackbird. I lay there, my eyes unable to close. His were… — David Mitchell Copy Share Image
“Well, Hae-Joo probed, what did I do to relax? I play Go against my sony, I said. "To relax?" he responded, incredulous.… — David Mitchell Football Copy Share Image
Power. What do we mean? 'The ability to determine another man's luck.' ...how is it that some men attain mastery over others… — David Mitchell Ability Copy Share Image
“Old Father Timothy offers this advice to his younger readers, included for free in the price of this memoir: conduct your life… — David Mitchell Books Copy Share Image
“So, I asked ’gain, is it better to be savage’n to be Civ’lized? List’n, savages an’ Civ’lizeds ain’t divvied by tribes or… — David Mitchell Savages Copy Share Image
“This druid feeling I get in the woods’s so thrilling it makes me want to crap, so I dug a hole with… — David Mitchell Adventure Copy Share Image
“Empires die, like all of us dancers in the strobe-lit dark. See how the light needs shadows. Look: wrinkles spread like mildew… — David Mitchell Dance Copy Share Image
“Human beings,’ I inhale my wine’s nutmeggy steam, ‘are walking bundles of cravings. Cravings for food, water, shelter, warmth; sex and companionship;… — David Mitchell Cravings Copy Share Image
“Six feet directly beneath his seat is a suitcase in the baggage hold containing enough C-4 to turn an airplane into a… — David Mitchell Baggage Copy Share Image
“The novelist is more like a pregnant woman who delivers her own child unaided. A messy procedure, with lots of groaning.” — David Mitchell Novelist Copy Share Image
“Your life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean." "Yet, what is any ocean but a multitude of… — David Mitchell Life Copy Share Image
Writing is probably one-fifth coming up with the stuff, and four-fifths self-editing again and again and again. — David Mitchell Copy Share Image
“Sobering to think how one accursed night of baccarat can alter a man's social standing so irreversibly.” — David Mitchell Wine Copy Share Image
“The glances musicians exchange, when music is effortless, that was what he wanted from Milly, that intimacy.” — David Mitchell Music Copy Share Image
“An Anchorite was a girl who lived like a hermit in a cell, but in the wall of a church. A living… — David Mitchell Sacrifice Copy Share Image
Love's pure free joy when it works, but when it goes bad you pay for the good hours at loan-shark prices. — David Mitchell Copy Share Image
“I find geriatric prodigies much more interesting than child prodigies” — David Mitchell Children Copy Share Image
What do I miss? Second-hand bookshops where I can find things I had no idea I wanted. AbeBooks helps, but it doesn't… — David Mitchell Bookshops Copy Share Image
'Y' is about the weakest letter of all. 'Y' can't make up its mind if it's a vowel or a consonant, can… — David Mitchell Copy Share Image
“To get the crowd to cry Hosanna, you must first ride to town on an ass.” — David Mitchell Copy Share Image
“Summer has taken a sensuous turn: Ayrs’s wife and I are lovers. Don’t alarm yourself! Only in the carnal sense.” — David Mitchell Love Copy Share Image
“I pitched my voice for Dirty Harry, but it was more Lisping Baggins.” — David Mitchell Humor Copy Share Image
“Storytellers are not priests who commune with an ethereal realm but artisans, like dumpling makers, if somewhat slower.” — David Mitchell Storytellers Copy Share Image
Torturous advances won over generations can be lost by a single stroke of a myopic president's pen or a vainglorious general's sword. — David Mitchell Generations Copy Share Image
