The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet

by David Mitchell

When shaving, thinks Jacob, a man rereads his truest memoir.

“ ’Tain’t good intentions what paves the road to hell: it’s self-justifyin’s.

Creation never ceased on the sixth evening, it occurs to the young man. Creation unfolds around us, despite us, and through us, at the speed of days and nights, and we like to call it “love.”

“we have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love.

“The truth of a myth, Your Honor, is not its words but its patterns.”

“How I hate a man,” says Wren, “who farts in French and expects applause.”