Utopia Avenue

by David Mitchell

Suffering is the promise that life always keeps.

‘My Dutch grandfather used to say, “If you don’t know what to do, do nothing for eight days.”’ Dean asked, ‘Why eight?’ ‘Less than eight is haste. More than eight is procrastination. Eight days is long enough for the world to shuffle the deck and deal you another hand.’

Like Charles Mingus says, writing about music is like dancing about architecture.’