Quotes from David Mitchell

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.

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

I believe there is another world waiting for us. A better world. And I'll be waiting for you there.

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.

A half-read book is a half-finished love affair.

Books don't offer real escape, but they can stop a mind scratching itself raw.

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.

Travel far enough, you meet yourself.

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.

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.

I've become a less brave traveller since I became a dad, but in the past I was more foolhardy than brave.

Japanese food makes me feel particularly good.

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.

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.

'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?

It's true that stammerers can become more adept at sentence construction.

Faith, the least exclusive club on Earth, has the craftiest doorman.

Two people who are a little bit deluded in each other's favour. That's what love is, isn't it?

I asked, how is knowledge found? 'You must learn how to read, little sister, ' he said.

I'm not from a milieu where high-register language or philosophical ideas were welcome.

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.

My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?