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" For me, novels coalesce into being, rather than arrive fully formed. "
David Mitchell
Rather
Arrive
Being
Related Quotes:
" I often lose myself in the Sudoku-like challenges of making a book work. "
David Mitchell
Book
Myself
Work
" 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. "
David Mitchell
Time
You
Parents
" I've become a less brave traveller since I became a dad, but in the past I was more foolhardy than brave. "
David Mitchell
Past
More
In The Past
" A novelist needs to know his own strong points and weak points. "
David Mitchell
Points
Weak
Know
" Writing is probably one-fifth coming up with the stuff, and four-fifths self-editing again and again and again. "
David Mitchell
Up
Writing
Stuff
" False modesty can be worse than arrogance. "
David Mitchell
Modesty
Arrogance
False
" 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. "
David Mitchell
You
Future
Interesting
" The words 'maybe' and 'perhaps' are literally the same - the flavor is the same, the educational level is the same. But you just know when to use maybe and when to use perhaps. I think it's because of this: You get to know the tastes or musical tastes of words themselves, and this informs your choice, whether you use them or not. "
David Mitchell
Choice
You
Words
" There's been very little writing about speech impediments, even though it's this huge psychological barrier. "
David Mitchell
Little
Speech
Though
" Japanese food makes me feel particularly good. "
David Mitchell
Makes
Food
Feel
" Writers are so used to books being optioned and then the movie never happens. "
David Mitchell
Then
Happens
Books
" I love HBO productions, actually, like 'The Wire.' "
David Mitchell
Wire
Love
Like
" Historically, unfortunately, race seems to be the major division that humanity has imposed on itself, a way of subdividing into smaller groups. "
David Mitchell
Race
Division
Way
" 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. "
David Mitchell
Power
Love
Human
" I think we think in terms of stories. "
David Mitchell
Terms
Think
Stories
" Perhaps where text slides toward ambiguity, film inclines to specificity. A novel contains as many versions of itself as it has readers, whereas a film's final cut vaporizes every other way it might have been made. "
David Mitchell
Ambiguity
Been
Film
" 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. "
David Mitchell
Say
Message
Believe
" When you're out of your own cultural context you have conversations with yourself that you just don't have at any other point in your life. When you're in a hotel room on the border between India and Nepal you can really discover things about yourself. "
David Mitchell
You
Own
Yourself
" I'm not a great deep political thinker. "
David Mitchell
Thinker
Political
Deep
" Any adaptation is a translation, and there is such a thing as an unreadably faithful translation; and I believe a degree of reinterpretation for the new language may be not only inevitable but desirable. "
David Mitchell
Believe
Only
I Believe
" I'm certainly a plot and character man. Themes, structure, style - they're valid components of a novel and you can't complete the book without them. But I think what propels me as a reader is plot and character. "
David Mitchell
Book
Style
Me
" I rarely ever put my head above the rampart and see where this big lumbering behemoth called 'global literature' is going. "
David Mitchell
Literature
Above
See
" I'm a novelist, that's how I make my livelihood, and I concentrate on the novels. "
David Mitchell
Concentrate
Make
Livelihood
" The state of childhood resonates with life inside a fantasy novel. If you have no control over how you spend large chunks of your day, or are at the mercy of flawed giant beings, then the desire to bend the laws of the world by magic is strong and deep. "
David Mitchell
Life
Childhood
Day
" Sometimes, comics will make the observation that it's not jokes that are funny, it's characters that are funny. And isn't that true! That's why I always kill jokes. I'm terrible at them, because I get the joke right, but I can't get the character right, and it just goes down like a lead balloon. "
David Mitchell
Balloon
Character
Down
" Many children are natural fantasists, I think, perhaps because their imaginations have yet to be clobbered into submission by experience. "
David Mitchell
Natural
Think
Children
" Perhaps all human interaction is about wanting and getting. "
David Mitchell
Getting
Wanting
Interaction
" I can write pretty much anywhere. "
David Mitchell
Much
Anywhere
Write
" I think words operate like musical notes that the eyeball hears. "
David Mitchell
Notes
Like
I Think
" You can't be a part-time Richard Dawkins. "
David Mitchell
Part-Time
You
Richard