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" 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
Me
People
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" 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 art of the novelist is not unrelated to the illness of multiple personality disorder. It's a much milder form. But the better the book, the nearer to the padded cell you are. "
David Mitchell
Art
Personality
Better
" 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
" Your environment affects you wherever you are. "
David Mitchell
Your
Environment
Wherever
" Perhaps all human interaction is about wanting and getting. "
David Mitchell
Getting
Wanting
Interaction
" I think the story is the most ancient form of human entertainment. "
David Mitchell
Entertainment
Most
Story
" I still haven't quite got used to eating live fish. "
David Mitchell
Live
Fish
Used
" 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
" 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
" 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
" I had a happy childhood. "
David Mitchell
Had
Happy
Happy Childhood
" 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
" There's been very little writing about speech impediments, even though it's this huge psychological barrier. "
David Mitchell
Little
Speech
Though
" 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 often lose myself in the Sudoku-like challenges of making a book work. "
David Mitchell
Book
Myself
Work
" For me, novels coalesce into being, rather than arrive fully formed. "
David Mitchell
Rather
Arrive
Being
" 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
" 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 a novelist, that's how I make my livelihood, and I concentrate on the novels. "
David Mitchell
Concentrate
Make
Livelihood
" 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
" 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
" 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
" 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. "
David Mitchell
Got
Help
Literature
" Writers are so used to books being optioned and then the movie never happens. "
David Mitchell
Then
Happens
Books
" 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
" My books are anti-absolutist and deeply distrustful of any religious stance that precludes the validity of any other. "
David Mitchell
Deeply
Stance
Religious
" 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
" 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
" 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
" '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
Up
Mind