David Mitchell Quote #1
(...)entre todas las razas del mundo, nuestra sed, o mejor dicho, nuestra avidez, de tesoros, de oro, de especias y de dominio, ¡oh, si!, sobre todo del dulce dominio, ¡es la más aguda, la más insaciable, la más carente de todo escrúpulo! Es esta avidez la que alimenta nuestro progreso, no sé si con fines diabólicos o divinos. Ni usted tampoco lo sabe, señor. Ni yo tengo el menor interés en saberlo. Simplemente, me alegro de que el Creador me arrojase del lado de los vencedores.
David Mitchell Quote #2
(...)si nos convencemos de que la humanidad puede trascender colmillos y garras, si nos convencemos de que las diversas razas y credos pueden compartir pacíficamente la tierra, (...)si nos convencemos de que los gobernantes deben ser justos, de que la violencia debe dominarse, de que el poder ha de ser responsable y las riquezas de la tierra y los océanos deben repartirse equitativamente entre todos, este mundo se hará realidad. No me engaño. Ya sé que es el más difícil de los mundos posibles.
David Mitchell Quote #3
. . .my dreams are the single unpredictable factor in my zoned days and nights. Nobody allots them, or censors them. Dreams are all I have ever truly owned.
David Mitchell Quote #4
... but it is attitude, not years, that condemns one to the ranks of the Undead, or else proffers salvation. In the domain of the young there dwells many an Undead soul. They rush about so, their inner putrefaction is concealed for a few decades, that is all.
David Mitchell Quote #5
... in a cycle as old as tribalism, ignorance of the Other engenders fear; fear engenders hatred; hatred engenders violence; violence engenders further violence until the only rights, the only law, are whatever is willed by the most powerful.
David Mitchell Quote #6
...I shall pledge myself to the Abolitionist cause, because I owe my life to a self-freed slave & because I must begin somewhere.
I hear my father-in-law's response: 'Oho, fine, Whiggish sentiments, Adam. But don't tell *me* about justice! Ride to Tennessee on an ass & convince the rednecks that they are merely white-washed negroes & their negroes that they are black-washed Whites! Sail to the Old World, tell 'em their imperial slaves' rights are as inalienable as the Queen of Belgium's! Oh, you'll grow hoarse, poor & gray in caucuses! You'll be spat on, shot at, lynched, pacified with medals, spurned by backwoodsmen! Crucified! 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 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 Mitchell Quote #7
...if you bare your arse to a vengeful unicorn, the number of possible outcomes dwindles to one.
David Mitchell Quote #8
...it’s not just the person who fills a house, it’s their I’ll be back later!s, their toothbrushes and unused hats and coats, their belongingnesses.
David Mitchell Quote #9
...that human hunger birthed the Civ'lize, but human hunger killed it too.
David Mitchell Quote #10
...there ain't no journey what don't change you some.
David Mitchell Quote #11
-Exposition: the workings of the actual past + the virtual past may be illustrated by an event well known to collective history, such as the sinking of the Titanic. The disaster as it actually occurred descends into obscurity as its eyewitnesses die off, documents perish + the wreck of the ship dissolves in its Atlantic grave. Yet a virtual sinking of the Titanic, created from reworked memories, papers, hearsay, fiction--in short, belief--grows ever 'truer.' The actual past is brittle, ever-dimming + ever more problematic to access + reconstruct: in contrast, the virtual past is malleable, ever-brightening + ever more difficult to circumvent/expose as fraudulent.
-The present presses the virtual past into its own service, to lend credence to its mythologies + legitimacy to the imposition of will. Power seeks + is the right to 'landscape' the virtual past. (He who pays the historian calls the tune.)
-Symmetry demands an actual + virtualfuture, too. We imagine how next week, next year, or 2225 will shape up--a virtual future, constructed by wishes, prophecies + daydreams. This virtual future may influence the actual future, as in a self-fulfilling prophecy, but the actual future will eclipse our virtual one as surely as tomorrow eclipses today. Like Utopia, the actual future + the actual past exist only in the hazy distance, where they are no good to anyone.
-Q: Is there a meaningful distinction between one simulacrum of smoke, mirrors + shadows--the actual past--from another such simulacrum--the actual future?
-One model of time: an infinite matryoshka doll of painted moments, each 'shell' (the present) encased inside a nest of 'shells' (previous presents) I call the actual past but which we perceive as the virtual past. The doll of 'now' likewise encases a nest of presents yet to be, which I call the actual future but which we perceive as the virtual future.
-Proposition: I am in love with Luisa Ray.David Mitchell Quote #12
But if you knew about this... conspiracy, why did you cooperate with it? Why did you allow Hae-Joo Im to get so close to you?
Why does any martyr cooperate with his judases?
Tell me.
We see an end beyond the endgame.David Mitchell Quote #13
But if you knew about this... conspiracy, why did you cooperate with it? Why did you allow Hae-Joo Im to get so close to you?
Why does any martyr cooperate with his judases?
Tell me.
We see an end beyond the endgame. ...David Mitchell Quote #14
But if you knew about this…conspiracy, why did you cooperate with it? Why did you allow Hae-Joo Im to get so close to you?
Why does any martyr cooperate with his judases?
Tell me.
We see a game beyond the endgame...As Seneca warned Nero: No matter how many of us you kill, you will never kill your successor.David Mitchell Quote #15
But if you knew about this…conspiracy, why did you cooperate with it? Why did you allow Hae-Joo Im to get so close to you?
Why does any martyr cooperate with his judases?
Tell me.
We see a game beyond the endgame…
But to what end? Some future…revolution? It can never succeed.
As Seneca warned Nero: No matter how many of us you kill, you will never kill your successor.David Mitchell Quote #16
Fantasy. Lunacy.
All revolutions are, until they happen, then they are historical inevitabilities.David Mitchell Quote #17
To implant belief . . . is to dominate the believers.
David Mitchell Quote #18
…It's as if they actually think that what other people think of them somehow doesn't matter. I mean, I know we're all supposed to believe that, but obviously, none of us actually do. And nor should we, because it does! It does matter! And the people who genuinely believe it doesn't tend to be the very people who ought to care most what other people think of them, because what the other people are thinking is, 'No, actually, I don't think the Chinese are up to something,' or, 'You should use mouthwash,' or, 'Your mania for the collective socialization of agriculture will surely cause the deaths of millions,' or, 'Forty cats is too many cats.
David Mitchell Quote #19
¡Y cuando exhales el último suspiro, sólo entonces, te darás cuenta de que tu vida no ha sido más que una minúscula gota en un océano infinito!
Y sin embargo, ¿qué es un océano sino una multitud de gotas?David Mitchell Quote #20
A book can’t be a half-fantasy any more than a woman can be half pregnant
David Mitchell Quote #21
A book you finish reading is not the same book it was before you read it.
David Mitchell Quote #22
A half-read book is a half-finished love affair.
David Mitchell Quote #23
A life can get knocked into a new orbit by a car crash, a lottery win or just a bleary-eyed consultant giving bad news in a calm voice.
David Mitchell Quote #24
A single night is stuffed with minutes, but they leak out, one by one.
David Mitchell Quote #25
A sprinkle of last-minute despair gives a soul an agreeably earthy aftertaste.
David Mitchell Quote #26
A volley of hailstones began abruptly, filled the woods with a frenzied percussion & ended on the sudden.
David Mitchell Quote #27
A weapon men use against women is the refusal to take them seriously.
David Mitchell Quote #28
A wise man does not step betwixt the beast and his meat
David Mitchell Quote #29
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 relationships, and distend your life. You have been warned.
David Mitchell Quote #30
After ten pages I felt that Nietzsche was reading me, not I him.
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