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" 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

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" I can't bear living in this huge beautiful world and not try to imitate it as best I can. "

" 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. "

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

" I'm a novelist, that's how I make my livelihood, and I concentrate on the novels. "

" Japanese food makes me feel particularly good. "

" 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. "

" For me, novels coalesce into being, rather than arrive fully formed. "

" Many children are natural fantasists, I think, perhaps because their imaginations have yet to be clobbered into submission by experience. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" '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? "

David Mitchell

Weakest

Mind

" There's been very little writing about speech impediments, even though it's this huge psychological barrier. "

" 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. "

" You can't be a part-time Richard Dawkins. "

" 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. "

" When I think about it, I'm happily bewildered that people will preorder my books They'll preorder me. What a lucky guy! "

David Mitchell

Will

People

" I often lose myself in the Sudoku-like challenges of making a book work. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" My books are anti-absolutist and deeply distrustful of any religious stance that precludes the validity of any other. "

" I think we think in terms of stories. "

" 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

Meat

" I still haven't quite got used to eating live fish. "

" 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. "

" Writing is probably one-fifth coming up with the stuff, and four-fifths self-editing again and again and again. "

David Mitchell

Writing

Stuff

" Historically, unfortunately, race seems to be the major division that humanity has imposed on itself, a way of subdividing into smaller groups. "

" 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