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Strip 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 Mitchell

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Strip Back The Beliefs

David Mitchell

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Strip 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.

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Don't Remember Summer Even Saying Goodbye.

My Life Amounts To No More Than One Drop In A Limitless Ocean. Yet What Is Any Ocean, But A Multitude Of Drops?

If Swans Weren't Real Myths'd Make Up.

I Believe There Is Another World Waiting For Us. A Better World. And I'll Be Waiting For You There.

…and There, In The Background, The Sky’s Sediment Had Sunk To A Place Where All The Woe Of The Words ‘i Am’ Dissolved Into Blue Peace. He Said It. ‘the Ocean.

Leaves Turned To Soil Beneath My Feet. Thus It Is, Trees Eat Themselves.

I'm A Novelist, That's How I Make My Livelihood, And I Concentrate On The Novels.

I Am Going To Tell You A Secret. Everything Is About Wanting. Everything. Things Happen Because Of People Wanting. Watch Closely, And You’ll See What I Mean.

The Better Organized The State, The Duller Its Humanity.

Creation Never Ceased On The Sixth Evening, It Occurs To The Young Man. Creation Unfolds Around Us, Despite Us And Through Us At The Speed Of Days And Nights. And We Call It Love.

I...asked Why Purebloods Despised Me So. He Replied, 'what If The Difference 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?... Fabricants Are Mirrors Held Up To Purebloods' Consciences; What Purebloods See Reflected There Sickens Them. So They Blame You For Holding Up The Mirror

Better A Soulless Clone... Than A Souled Roach.

If War's First Victim Is Truth, Its Second Is Clerical Efficiency.

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.

If You Show Someone Something You've Written, You Give Them A Sharpened Stake, Lie Down In Your Coffin, And Say, ‘when You’re Ready’.

Under The Enrichment Laws, Consumers Have To Spend A Fixed Quota Of Dollars Each Month, Depending On Their Strata. Hoarding Is An Anti-corpocratic Crime.

Writing Is Such A Damn Lonely Sickness.

As Long As Our Civilisation Keeps Trundling Along Generally Forwards, Then There Is The Possibility Of A Future Where Ethnicity Is Merely An Interesting Badge, Not A Uniform You Can't Take Off.

If, By Happiness, You Mean The Absence Of Adversity I And All Fabricants Are The Happiest Stratum In Corpocracy As Genomicists Insist. However, If Happiness Means The Conquest Of Adversity Or A Sense Of Purpose, Or The Xercise Of One’s Will To Power, Then Of All Nea So Copros’s Slaves We Surely Are The Most Miserable.

...now I'm A Spent Firework; But At Least I've Been A Firework.

Do," Said Louisa Finally, "whatever You Can't Not Do.

For White Men, To Live Is To Own, Or To Try To Own More, Or To Die Trying To Own More. Their Appetites Are Astonishing! They Own Wardrobes, Slaves, Carriages, Houses, Warehouses, And Ships. They Own Ports, Cities, Plantations, Valleys, Mountains, Chains Of Islands. They Own This World, Its Jungles, Its Skies, And Its Seas. Yet They Complain That Dejima Is A Prison. They Complain They Are Not Free.

Don't Bemoan Your Misspent Life Quite Yet. Forgive Me For Flaunting My Experience, But You Have No Conception Of What A Misspent Life Constitutes.

Souls Cross Ages Like Clouds Cross Skies, An' Tho' A Cloud's Shape Nor Hue Nor Size Don't Stay The Same, It's Still A Cloud An' So Is A Soul. Who Can Say Where The Cloud's Blowed From Or Who The Soul'll Be 'morrow? Only Sonmi The East An' The West An' The Compass An' The Atlas, Yay, Only The Atlas O' Clouds.

The Music Provokes A Sharp Longing The Music Soothes.

The Body Is The Outermost Layer Of The Mind.

Loneliness Is An Integral Part Of Travelling. I Used To Think It Was The Downside To Travelling, But Now I Realise It Is A Necessary Educative Part Of It To Be Embraced.

Perpetual Encagement Endows Any Mirage Of Salvation With Credibility.

A Life Spent Shaping A World I Want Jackson To Inherit, Not One I Fear Jackson Shall Inherit, This Strikes Me As A Life Worth The Living.

The Best Way To Get Out Of Debt Is Not To Seek To Get Out Of Debt, But To Seek To Create Wealth

I'm Not From A Milieu Where High-register Language Or Philosophical Ideas Were Welcome.

I 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.

The Song Instantly Insisted It'd Never Existed.

Torturous Advances Won Over Generations Can Be Lost By A Single Stroke Of A Myopic President's Pen Or A Vainglorious General's Sword.

Mother 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.

Three Or Four Times Only In My Youth Did I Glimpse The Joyous Isles, Before They Were Lost To Fogs, Depressions, Cold Fronts, Ill Winds, And Contrary Tides... I Mistook Them For Adulthood. Assuming They Were A Fixed Feature In My Life's Voyage, I Neglected To Record Their Latitude, Their Longitude, Their Approach. Young Ruddy Fool. What Wouldn't I Give Now For A Never-changing Map Of The Ever-constant Ineffable? To Possess, As It Were, An Atlas Of Clouds.

Clocks In Disagreement Are Worse Than No Clock At All.

One Fine Day A Predatory World Shall Consume Itself.

Do Ants Get Headaches?

We Are Only What We Know, And I Wished To Be So Much More Than I Was, Sorely.

Always, It Is The Poor People Who Pay. And Always, It Is The Poor People's Women Who Pay The Most.

People Are Obscenities. Would Rather Be Music Than Be A Mass Of Tubes Squeezing Semisolids Around Itself For A Few Decades Before Becoming So Dribblesome It'll No Longer Function.

I Wonder If You Encountered This Dictum First Spoken By A Twentieth-century Statesman: "an Abyss Cannot Be Crossed In Two Steps.

Autumn Is Leaving Its Mellowness Behind For Its Spiky, Rotted Stage. Don't Remember Summer Even Saying Goodbye.

'y' Is About The Weakest Letter Of All. 'y' Can't Make Up Its Mind If It's A Vowel Or A Consonant, Can It?

There's A Link Between Bigotry And Bad Spelling.

Two People Who Are A Little Bit Deluded In Each Other's Favour. That's What Love Is, Isn't It?

It'll Be All Right." Julia's Gentleness Makes It Worse. "in The End, Jace." "it Doesn't Feel Very All Right." "that's Because It's Not The End.

Oh, Diplomacy ... It Mops Up War's Spillages; Legitimizes Its Outcomes; Gives The Strong State The Means To Impose Its Will On A Weaker One, While Saving Its Fleets And Battalions For Weightier Opponents.

I 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.

Folks With Most To Complain About Seldom Complain Most.

So Little Is Actually Worthy Of Belief Or Disbelief. Better To Strive To Coexist Than Seek To Disapprove . . .

Time Is The Speed At Which The Past Decays.

In The 1970s And 1980s There Was So Little Decent Fiction For Young People, But We're Now In A Golden Age That Shows No Sign Of Fading. Philip Pullman, J. K. Rowling, Lemony Snicket Are Only Three Of The Best Known Among A Good Number Of Equals.

How Could I Know A Famished Heart Will Eat Its Mind? Can Kill Its Body?

I Really Wish They Hadn't Made The Set Out Of Asbestos.

Lying's Wrong, But When The World Spins Backwards, A Small Wrong May Be A Big Right.

There Are So Many Cities In Every Single City.

I Think All Writers Of My Age Who Are Brought Up On Films Probably By The Age Of 16 Have Seen Many More Films Than They Have Read Classics Of Literature. We Can't Help But Be Influenced By Film. Film Has Got Some Great Tricks That It's Taught Writers.

As An Experienced Editor, I Disapprove Of Flashbacks, Foreshadowings, And Tricksy Devices; They Belong In The 1980s With M.a.s In Postmodernism And Chaos Theory.

I Feel Like Something Important Has Happened To Me. Is This Possible?

Many Children Are Natural Fantasists, I Think, Perhaps Because Their Imaginations Have Yet To Be Clobbered Into Submission By Experience.

Lunatics Are Writers Whose Works Write Them.

Our Lives Are Not Our Own. We Are Bound To Others, Past And Present, And By Each Crime And Every Kindness, We Birth Our Future.

Perhaps All Human Interaction Is About Wanting And Getting.

To Fool A Judge, Feign Fascination, But To Bamboozle The Whole Court, Feign Boredom.

The Rain's Innumerable Hooves Spatter On The Streets And Roofs.

How 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.

Anticipating The End Of The World Is Humanity's Oldest Passtime

End Of The World

War's An Auction Where Whoever Can Pay The Most In Damage And Still Be Standing Wins.

You Can Maintain Power Over People, As Long As You Give Them Something. Rob A Man Of Everything, And That Man Will No Longer Be In Your Power.

Books Don't Offer Real Escape, But They Can Stop A Mind Scratching Itself Raw.

Time Is What Stops History Happening At Once; Time Is The Speed At Which The Past Disappears.

It's True That Stammerers Can Become More Adept At Sentence Construction.

This Isn’t Lust. Lust Wants, Does The Obvious 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.

Good Moods’re As Fragile As Eggs...bad Moods’re As Fragile As Bricks.

Who Was Blowing On The Nape Of My Neck?

Hate Eats The Hater The Way Ogres Eat Little Boys.

The Most Malicious God Is The God Of The Counted Chicken.

Probably" Is A Word With An Emergency Ejector Seat.

People B'lief The World Is Built So An Tellin Em It Ain't So Caves The Roofs On Their Heads'n'maybe Yours.

A Weapon Men Use Against Women Is The Refusal To Take Them Seriously.

History Admits No Rules; Only Outcomes.

Ive Never Had Cocaine. I Work In Showbusiness And No One Has Ever Offered Me Cocaine. Can You Believe That? It Makes Me Worry Im Not Always The Life And Soul Of The Party That I Feel Like In My Head.

...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.

Missing Someone

I’m Scared Of The Future. I’m Scared Of The Past. I’m Nervous At The Moment.

Faith, The Least Exclusive Club On Earth, Has The Craftiest Doorman.

Once Any Tyranny Becomes Accepted As Ordinary, Its Victory Is Assured.

The Mind Abhors A Vacancy & Is Wont To People It With Phantoms.

Right, My Phone. When These Things First Appeared, They Were So Cool. Only When It Was Too Late Did People Realize They Are As Cool As Electronic Tags On Remand Prisoners.

Have You Noticed," Said John, "how Countries Call Theirs 'sovereign Nuclear Deterrents,' But Call The Other Countries' Ones 'weapons Of Mass Destruction'?

Mass Destruction

Pain Is Strong, Aye - But Friends' Eyes, More Strong." I Told Him That He Knows Next To Nothing About Me & I Know Nothing About Him. He Jabbed At His Eyes & Jabbed At Mine, As If That Single Gesture Were Ample Explanation.

She Has To Lose Her Pre-copernican View Of A Universe Revolving Around Herself.

Why Does Any Martyr Cooperate With His Judases?...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.

Often I Think Boys Don’t Become Men. Boys Just Get Papier-mâchéd Inside A Man’s Mask. Sometimes You Can Tell The Boy Is Still In There.

I Think It's Natural For Youth To Be Drawn To Newness: The World Is Still New For Them.

Your Turn Has Come To Sift Through The Dreck Of Humanity For Rare Specks Of Originality

We Are Both Busy People, So Let's Cut The Small Talk.

I Have Always Preferred Maps To Books. They Don't Answer You Back.

If Your Words're True, They're Armed.

A Novelist Needs To Know His Own Strong Points And Weak Points.

Implausible Truth Can Serve One Better Than Plausible Fiction

Sometimes The Fluffy Bunny Of Incredulity Zooms Around The Bend So Rapidly That The Greyhound Of Language Is Left, Agog, In The Starting Cage.

What Is "poker"? A Card Game Where Abler Liars Take Money Off Less Able Liars.

Act', Implores The Ghost Of Future Regret. 'i Shan't Give You Another Chance'. [and So Jacob Does] 'damned Fool,' Groans The Demon Of Present Regret. 'what Have You Done?

Maybe Then You Comprehend, Speaking One Language Only Is A Prison!

Foreign Language

If I Want To Act Relaxed, It's Going To Take All My Cunning, Skill, And Concentration.

Maybe The Meaning Of Life Lies In Looking For It

Meaning Of Life

Power, Time, Gravity, Love. The Forces That Really Kick Ass Are All Invisible.

I've Become A Less Brave Traveller Since I Became A Dad, But In The Past I Was More Foolhardy Than Brave.

I Rarely Ever Put My Head Above The Rampart And See Where This Big Lumbering Behemoth Called 'global Literature' Is Going.

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.

The Her That Lived In Her Looked Out Through Her Eyes, Through My Eyes, And At The Me That Lives In Me.

Through My Eyes

. . .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.

One's Ribs Shouldn't Be Prison Bars.

Words Are Very Powerful And Can Lead Anyone Reading Them Or Hearing Them, Into Contemplation And Insight. How The Mind Follows Suit Is Rarely Palpable Or Expected. This Impact Is Not A Matter Of Metaphysical Effects Nor Of An Unexplainable Phenomenon. It’s Simply Part Of Being Human.

The Earth's A Door If You Press Your Ear Against It.

Women, O, Women! They'll Find The Baddest Meanin' In Your Words & Hold It Up.

Music’s A Wood You Walk Through.

Any Society's Upper-crust Is Riddled With Immorality, How Else D'you Think They Keep Their Power? Reputation Is King Of The Public Sphere, Not Private. It Is Dethroned By Public Acts.

Go To Hell, Willy, Our Souls Eat Poetry, But One Has Seven Deadly Sins To Feed!

Power. What Do We Mean? 'the Ability To Determine Another Man's Luck.' ...how Is It That Some Men Attain Mastery Over Others While The Vast Majority Live And Die As Minions, As Livestock? The Answer Is A Holy Trinity. First: God-given Gifts Of Charisma. Second: The Discipline To Nurture These Gifts To Maturity, For Though Humanity's Topsoil Is Fertile With Talent, Only One Seed In Ten Thousand Will Ever Flower -- For Want Of Discipline. Third: The Will To Power.

Secrets Affect You More Than You’d Think. You Lie To Keep Them Hidden. You Steer Talk Away From Them. You Worry Someone’ll Discover Yours And Tell The World. You Think You Are In Charge Of The Secret, But Isn’t It The Secret Who’s Actually Using You?

Strip Back The Beliefs Pasted On By Governesses, Schools, And States, You Find Indelible Truths At One's Core.

This World, He Thinks, Contains Just One Masterpiece, And That Is Itself.

Travel Far Enough, You Meet Yourself.

I Still Haven't Quite Got Used To Eating Live Fish.

What Is Any Ocean But A Multitude Of Drops?

Drops In The Ocean

How Lazily "xperts" Dismiss What They Fail To Understand!

I Elbowed My Way Into The Grubby Café, Bought A Pie That Tasted Of Shoe Polish And A Pot Of Tea With Cork Crumbs Floating In It, And Eavesdropped On A Pair Of Shetland Pony Breeders. Despondency Makes One Hanker After Lives One Never Led. Why Have You Given Your Life To Books, Tc? Dull, Dull, Dull! The Memoirs Are Bad Enough, But All That Ruddy Fiction! Hero Goes On A Journey, Stranger Comes To Town, Somebody Wants Something, They Get It Or They Don't, Will Is Pitted Against Will. "admire Me, For I Am A Metaphor.

Truth Is Singular. Its 'versions' Are Mistruths.

The Truth Of A Myth...is Not In Its Words But Its Patterns.

The Learnin' Mind Is The Livin' Mind, Meronym Said, An Any Sort O'smart Is Truesome Smart, Old Smart Or New High Smart Or Low.

A Book You Finish Reading Is Not The Same Book It Was Before You Read It.

I 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?

Peace, Though Beloved Of Our Lord, Is A Cardinal Virtue Only If Your Neighbors Share Your Conscience.

As 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.

Historically, Unfortunately, Race Seems To Be The Major Division That Humanity Has Imposed On Itself, A Way Of Subdividing Into Smaller Groups.

If Losers Can Exploit What Their Adversaries Teach Them, Yes, Losers Can Become Winners In The Long Term.

Why Human Beings Despise What Is Beautiful And Good, And Seek To Destroy The Things They Need The Most

... 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.

Dead Things Show You What You’ll Be Too One Day.

Assured Her I've Never Loved Anyone Except Myself And Have No Intention Of Starting Now.

... 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.

I Think Words Operate Like Musical Notes That The Eyeball Hears.

Strip 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.

The Weak Are Meat The Strong Do Eat.

I Remain Thankful To God For All His Mercies.

Thankful To God

Little Girls Are Like Old Cats. If They Don't Like You Nothing On Earth Will Make Them Pretend To.

Over 85% Of All Statistics Are Made Up On The Spot.

By Each Crime And Every Kindness, We Birth Our Future.

Human Beings Need To Watch Out For Reasonless Niceness Too. It's Never Reasonless And Its Reason's Not Usually Nice.

Eva. Every Day I've Climbed Up The Belfry Chanting A Lucky Chant At One Syllable Per Beat, "to-day-to-day-let-her-be-here-to-day-to-day.

An Idler And A Sluggard Are As Different As A Gourmand And A Glutton.

I'm Not A Great Deep Political Thinker.

Words Are What You Fight With But What You Fight About Is Whether Or Not You're Afraid Of Them.

I Often Lose Myself In The Sudoku-like Challenges Of Making A Book Work.

Faith, The Least Exclusive Club On Earth, Has The Craftiest Doorman. Every Time I've Stepped Through Its Wide-open Doorway, I Find Myself Stepping Out On The Street Again.

The Spirit Was Willing But The Flesh Was Weak.

The World Never Stops Unmaking What The World Never Stops Making. But Who Says The World Has To Make Sense?

Trees're Always A Relief, After People.

The 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.

Wars 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.

Men Invented Money Women Invented Mutual Aid

Mother Used To Say Escape Is Never Further Than The Nearest Book.

Italians Give Their City Sexes, And They All Agree That The Sex For A Particular City Is Quite Correct, But None Of Them Can Explain Why. I Love That. London's Middle-aged And Male, Respectably Married But Secretly Gay.

What Sparks Wars? The Will To Power, The Backbone Of Human Nature. The Threat Of Violence, The Fear Of Violence, Or Actual Violence, Is The Instrument Of This Dreadful Will. You Can See The Will To Power In Bedrooms, Kitchens, Factories, Unions And The Borders Of States. Listen To This And Remember It. The Nation State Is Merely Human Nature Inflated To Monstrous Proportions. Qed, Nations Are Entities Whose Laws Are Written By Violence. Thus It Ever Was, So Ever Shall It Be.

It's True, Reading Too Many Novels Makes You Go Blind.

Love's Pure Free Joy When It Works, But When It Goes Bad You Pay For The Good Hours At Loan-shark Prices.

You Say You're 'depressed' - All I See Is Resilience. You Are Allowed To Feel Messed Up And Inside Out. It Doesn't Mean You're Defective - It Just Means You're Human.

The 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.

I Think We Think In Terms Of Stories.

I Can Write Pretty Much Anywhere.

Teachers're Always Using That "in Your Own Words." I Hate That. Authors Knit Their Sentences Tight. It's Their Job. Why Make Us Unpick Them, Just To Put It Back Together More Shonkily? How're You S'posed To Say Kapellmeister If You Can't Say Kapellmeister?

I Am, Emphatically. Mental Illness Triggered By Xperimental Error.

Nothing Is As Eloquent As Nothing.

I Think The Story Is The Most Ancient Form Of Human Entertainment.

When Insolvent, Pack Minimally, With A Valise Tough Enough To Be Thrown Onto A London Pavement From A First- Or Second-floor Window. Insist On Hotel Rooms No Higher.

A Half-read Book Is A Half-finished Love Affair.

What Do I Miss? Second-hand Bookshops Where I Can Find Things I Had No Idea I Wanted. Abebooks Helps, But It Doesn't Have That Smell.

Yay, Old'uns' Smart Mastered Sicks, Miles, Seeds An' Made Miracles Ord'nary, But It Din't Master One Thing, Nay, A Hunger In The Hearts O' Humans, Yay, A Hunger For More.

Science Devises Ever Bloodier Means Of War Until Humanity's Powers Of Destruction Overcome Our Powers Of Creation And Our Civilisation Drives Itself To Extinction.

I Recently Bought A Cat, But Took It Back A Day Later Because Our Personalities Clashed.

Beyond The Indian Hamlet, Upon A Forlorn Strand, I Happened On A Trail Of Recent Footprints.

I'm From A Time And Place Where Bigheadedness Was A Really Savage Crime, And You'd Get Cut Down For It By Your Peers And Parents.

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.

For Me, Novels Coalesce Into Being, Rather Than Arrive Fully Formed.

Taro Taught Me That People Respect Spirit, But Even Cowards Don't Respect Cowards.

But You Have Read Madame Bovary?' (i'd Never Heard Of Her Books.) 'no.

If We Believe That Humanity May Transcend Tooth And Claw, If We Believe Divers Races & Creeds Can Share This World As Peaceably As The Orphans Share Their Candlenut Tree, If We Believe Leaders Must Be Just, Violence Muzzled, Power Accountable & The Riches Of The Earth & Its Oceans Shared Equitably, Such A World Will Come To Pass.

Reality Is The Page. Life Is The Word.

I 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.

Only Professional Diplomats, Inveterate Idiots And Women View Diplomacy As A Long-term Substitute For War.

So Winners, Hae-joo Proposed, Are The Real Losers Because They Learn Nothing? What, Then, Are Losers? Winners?

Write 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.

The Human World Is Made Of Stories, Not People. The People The Stories Use To Tell Themselves Are Not To Be Blamed

When I Think About It, I'm Happily Bewildered That People Will Preorder My Books They'll Preorder Me. What A Lucky Guy!

To 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.

Dreams Are All I Have Ever Truly Owned.

We Looked At Each Other For The Last Time; Nothing Is As Eloquent As Nothing.

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