David Mitchell

“...there ain't no journey what don't change you some.”

“I believe there is another world waiting for us. A better world. And I'll be waiting for you there.”

“Try this for deviancy: fabricants are mirrors held up to purebloods' conscience; what purebloods see reflected there sickens them. So they blame you for holding the mirror."I hid my shock by asking when purebloods might blame themselves.Mephi replied, "History suggests, not until they are made to.”

“What if the differences between social strata stem not from genomics or inherent xcellence or even dollars, but merely differences in knowledge? Would this not mean the whole Pyramid is built on shifting sands?" I speculated such a suggestion could be seen as a serious deviancy. Melphi seemed delited. "Try this for deviancy: fabricants are mirrors held up to purebloods' consciences; what purebloods see reflected there sickens them. So they blame you for holding up the mirror." I hid my shock by asking when purebloods might blame themselves. Melphi relplied, "History suggests, not until they are made to.”

“Books don't offer real escape, but they can stop a mind scratching itself raw.”

“One writes music because winter is eternal and because, if one didn't, the wolves and blizzards will be at one's throat all the sooner.”

“I recalled my father-in-law's aphorism "To fool a judge, feign fascination, but to bamboozle the whole court, feign boredom..." & I pretended to extract a speck from my eye.”

“Only I don't close my eyes these days, because it hurts too much when I open them.”

“Sometimes I think that creativity is a matter of seeing, or stumbling over, unobvious similarities between things - like composing a fresh metaphor, but on a more complex scale.”

“When you write it, don't write it in the manner of a spooky story. Don't try to give an explanation. Just say that I don't know what to make of it, just write it like I tell it, so the reader can make up his own mind.”

“Glass & peace alike betray proof of fragility under repeated blows.”

“If the human condition were the periodic table, maybe love would be hydrogen at No. 1. Death would be helium at No. 2. Power, I reckon, would be where oxygen is.”

“I think the story is the most ancient form of human entertainment.”

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

“The silences after his last gasp were sung together by a blackbird. I lay there, my eyes unable to close. His were unable to open. I listed the places where I hurt, and how much. My loins felt ripped. Something inside had torn. There were seven places on my body where he had sunk his fangs into my skin and bitten. He'd dug his nails into my neck, and twisted my head to one side, and clawed my face. I hadn't made a noise. He had made all the noise for both of us. Had it hurt him?”

“In March of 1915, all three of Lord and Lady Chetwynd-Pitt's sons'd been gassed, blown up or machine-gunned in the very same week at the battle of Neuve-Chapelle. All three. Imagine that: On Monday, you've got three sons, by Friday you've got none. Lady Albertina had just, y'know, caved in. Physically, mentally, spiritually, brutally.”

“I wish, he thinks, spoken words could be captured and kept in a locket.”

“London is a language. I guess all places are.”

“Nonfiction that smells like fiction is neither.”

“People like to say that East Asians in general, and Japanese in particular, are not very expressive: there's that term 'inscrutable.' But often, Europeans just don't get the Asian codes. Believe me, the message is being expressed OK.”