Quotes by David Mitchell

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

I'd love to know how Dad saw me when I was 6. I'd love to know a hundred things. When a parent dies, a filing cabinet full of all the fascinating stuff also ceases to exist. I never imagined how hungry I'd be one day to look inside it.

David Mitchell

I put my hand on the altar rail. 'What if ... what if Heaven is real, but only in moments? Like a glass of water on a hot day when you're dying of thirst, or when someone's nice to you for no reason, or ...' Mam's pancakes with Toblerone sauce; Dad d...

David Mitchell

Human cruelty can be infinite. Human generosity can be boundless.

David Mitchell

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 relatio...

David Mitchell

At certain rare moments, a library is a kind of mind.

David Mitchell

Power and money Like Pooh Bear and honey Stick fast.

David Mitchell

This isn’t lust. Lust wants, does the obvious, and pads back into the forest. Love is greedier. Love wants round-the-clock care; protection; rings, vows, joint accounts; scented candles on birthdays; life insurance. Babies. Love’s a dictator.

David Mitchell

Hobbies are for pleasure, but rituals keep you going.

David Mitchell

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

David Mitchell

...if you bare your arse to a vengeful unicorn, the number of possible outcomes dwindles to one.

David Mitchell

Life’s more science-fictiony by the day.

David Mitchell

For most digital-age writers, writing rewriting. We grope, cut, block, paste, and twitch, panning for gold onscreen by deleting bucketloads of crap. Our analog ancestors had to polish every line mentally before hammering it out mechanically. Rewrites...

David Mitchell

Think larger. Redraw what is possible.

David Mitchell

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

David Mitchell

On bad days you wonder, ‘Why not just back off from the war and lead a quiet metalife?

David Mitchell

A writer flirts with schizophrenia, nurtures synaesthesia, and embraces obsessive-compulsive disorder. Your art feeds on you, your soul, and, yes, to a degree, your sanity. Writing novels worth reading bugger up your mind, jeopardise your relationshi...

David Mitchell

And grade every simile and metaphor from one star to five, and remove any threes or below. It hurts when you operate, but afterwards you feel much better.

David Mitchell

Only one-tenth of what you write will make it into your manuscript, but when you knock on that tenth” – I rap my knuckles on the table – “you’ll hear oaken solidity, not sawdust and glue.

David Mitchell

Will I be some kid’s dad one day? Are any future people lurking deep inside mine?...Which girl’s carrying the other half of my kid, deep in those intricate loops? What’s she doing right now? What’s her name?

David Mitchell

There no such thing as something! Why? Because everything's already turning into something else!

David Mitchell

Disco's are tricky. You look a total wally if you dance too early but after one crucial song tips the disco over, you look a sad saddo if you don't.

David Mitchell