Ghostwritten

by David Mitchell

As have we all been betrayed by a society evolving into markets for Disney and McDonald’s. All that sacrifice, to build what? To build an unsinkable aircraft carrier for the United States.

The subway train in Tokyo was as crammed as a cattle-wagon. Crammed with organs, wrapped in meat, wrapped in clothes.

After my evening cleansing I felt fatigue that no amount of alpha refocusing could dispel. Cursing my weakness, I went to bed and sank into a sleep that was almost bottomless.

Secrets on islands are hidden from mainlanders, but never from the islanders.

I wish I knew more about pigeons. Were they strutting about like that for mating purposes, or just because they were strutty birds?

Where does this myth come from?’ ‘What myth?’ ‘The one that plagues all men. The one that says a life without darkness and sex and mystery is only half a life. Why?

Apparently the trombonist in their regular band was involved in some sort of accident involving a bent pipe and some zoo animals.

The her that lived in her looked out through her eyes, through my eyes and at the me that lives in me.

I wonder who had the first computer dream, where and when? I wonder if computers ever dream of humans.

I’d lost my virginity to that song under a mountain of coats at a friend’s party in Telford. Fuck knows what I was doing in Telford. Fuck knows what anybody is doing in Telford.

Unless you’ve lived with a ghost, you can’t know the truth of it. You assume that morning, noon and night, you’re walking around obsessed, fearful and waiting for the exorcist to call. It’s not really like that. It’s more like living with a very particular cat.

My father was dying as he had lived. With the minimum effort possible.

Make no mistake, I think my father was Emperor Chickenshit.

‘How’s the War and Peace? I have to admit, I’ve never read any Russians.’ ‘Long.’ ‘What’s it about?’ ‘Why things happen the way they do.’ ‘And why do things happen the way they do?’ ‘I don’t know, yet. It’s very long.’

I never went to Europe. It seemed a dead place, cold in the shadows of nuclear missiles.

After that night, Rudi got himself a gun, and I got myself some bandages.

The English are a devious race. A nation of homosexuals, vegetarians, and third-rate spies.

As the fine denizens of London Town know, each tube line has a distinct personality and range of mood swings. The Victoria Line for example, breezy and reliable. The Jubilee Line, the young disappointment of the family, branching out to the suburbs, eternally having extensions planned, twisting round to Greenwich, and back under the river out east somewhere. The District and Circle Line, well, even Death would rather fork out for a taxi if he’s in a hurry.

That’s about it for the main lines, except the Metropolitan which is too boring to mention, except that it’s a nice fuchsia colour and you take it to visit the dying.

Don’t try taking the spiral stairs to save time. Take it from me. It’s quicker to dig your way up.

My shadow didn’t even turn round. Why was he running? Literary precedents suggested that at least we should be able to have a stimulating conversation about the nature of good and evil.

London’s middle-aged and male, respectably married but secretly gay.

Londoners slag off London because, deep down, we know we are living in the greatest city in the world.

What’s the point of Yeats if you can’t buy a few rounds?

‘The act of memory is an act of ghostwriting.’

Memories are their own descendants masquerading as the ancestors of the present.

but I almost say things much more often than I say them.

But I cannot outrun the Pentagon using the Republic of Ireland’s public transport.