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" I'm a novelist, that's how I make my livelihood, and I concentrate on the novels. "
David Mitchell
Concentrate
Make
Livelihood
Related Quotes:
" 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
" When I was about 14, in about 1984, I decided to become a great poet. Faber & Faber was going to publish me, and when Ted Hughes read my first anthology he would invite me to Yorkshire for meat pies and mentorship. "
David Mitchell
First
Me
Meat
" I had a happy childhood. "
David Mitchell
Had
Happy
Happy Childhood
" 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 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
" 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
" 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
" 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
" It's true that stammerers can become more adept at sentence construction. "
David Mitchell
Become
More
True
" I think it's natural for youth to be drawn to newness: The world is still new for them. "
David Mitchell
New
Natural
Think
" 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. "
David Mitchell
Every Day
Matter
Three
" A novelist needs to know his own strong points and weak points. "
David Mitchell
Points
Weak
Know
" Writers are so used to books being optioned and then the movie never happens. "
David Mitchell
Then
Happens
Books
" Japanese food makes me feel particularly good. "
David Mitchell
Makes
Food
Feel
" 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 can write pretty much anywhere. "
David Mitchell
Much
Anywhere
Write
" I can't bear living in this huge beautiful world and not try to imitate it as best I can. "
David Mitchell
World
Living
I Can
" I'm not a great deep political thinker. "
David Mitchell
Thinker
Political
Deep
" 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. "
David Mitchell
Think
Used
Loneliness
" Your environment affects you wherever you are. "
David Mitchell
Your
Environment
Wherever
" 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
" 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
" Every relationship has its own language. It takes a long time to evolve and read one another. Just as it's true for people, it's also true on a national or cultural level. "
David Mitchell
People
Relationship
Time
" I still haven't quite got used to eating live fish. "
David Mitchell
Live
Fish
Used
" I don't have problems starting writing. I have problems stopping. I'm one of the last dads to arrive at school to collect the kids, because I want to get this paragraph just right. "
David Mitchell
Writing
Problems
Right
" When I talk about my artist parents, people imagine a bohemian environment and think, 'Aha, so that's where he gets it from!' But we were as white, straight, and middle-class as the next family on our white, straight, middle-class housing estate. "
David Mitchell
Think
Parents
Family
" 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
" There's a disease that young writers are susceptible to, which is, I will do this because I can - hubris, I suppose - without stopping to work out why. "
David Mitchell
I Can
Why
Will
" You can't be a part-time Richard Dawkins. "
David Mitchell
Part-Time
You
Richard
" 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. "
David Mitchell
Good
Age
Young