Quotes from David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

I recalled my father-in-law's aphorism "To fool a judge, feign fascination, but to bamboozle the whole court, feign boredom..." & I pretended to extract a speck from my eye.

At dawn the waves looked like mountain ranges tipped with gold as sunbeams slanted low under burgundy clouds.

Peace, though beloved of our Lord, is a cardinal virtue only if your neighbors share your conscience.

The better organized the state, the duller its humanity.

Implausible truth can serve one better than plausible fiction

The potatoes were starch grenades. The canned carrots were revolting because that is their nature.

Snarling an oath from an Icelandic saga, I reclaimed my place at the head of the queue. "Oy!" yelled a punk rocker, with studs in his cranium. "There's a fackin' q

If losers can exploit what their adversaries teach them, yes, losers can become winners in the long term.

...there ain't no journey what don't change you some.

...that human hunger birthed the Civ'lize, but human hunger killed it too.

Glass & peace alike betray proof of fragility under repeated blows.

So winners, Hae-Joo proposed, are the real losers because they learn nothing? What, then, are losers? Winners?

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

Any society's upper-crust is riddled with immorality, how else d'you think they keep their power? Reputation is king of the public sphere, not private. It is dethroned by public acts.

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

Travel far enough, you meet yourself.

Hey, metaphysics seminar is on the roof. Just take the elevator up and keep walking until you hit the sidewalk. Anything is true if enough people believe it.

Women, oh, women! They'll find the baddest meanin' in your words an' hold it up, sayin', Look what you attacked me with!

Lady Moon rose an' gazed o'er my busted'n'beautsome Valleys with silv'ry'n'sorryin' eyes, an' the dingos mourned for the died uns.

. . .my dreams are the single unpredictable factor in my zoned days and nights. Nobody allots them, or censors them. Dreams are all I have ever truly owned.

Faith, the least exclusive club on Earth, has the craftiest doorman. Every time I've stepped through its wide-open doorway, I find myself stepping out on the street again.