J2d > J2d's Quotes

“Writing poetry's,' I looked around the solarium, but Madame Crommelynck's got a tractor beam, 'sort of . . . gay.'
'"Gay"? A merry activity?'
This was hopeless. 'Writing poems is . . . what creeps and poofters do.'
'So are you one of these „creeps”?
'No.'
'Then you are a „pooof-ter”, whatever one is?'
'No!'
'Then your logic is eluding me.”
― David Mitchell, Black Swan Green

“But,' I ducked the subject, 'don't heaps of artists use pseudonyms?'
'Who?'
'Um . . .' Only Cliff Richard and Sid Vicious came to mind.”
― David Mitchell, Black Swan Green

“But you have read Madame Bovary?'
(I'd never heard of her books.) 'No.”
― David Mitchell, Black Swan Green

“Disco's are tricky. You look a total wally if you dance too early but after one crucial song tips the disco over, you look a sad saddo if you don't.”
― David Mitchell, Black Swan Green

“The art teacher's scarlet book was called Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille. 'As the title suggests,' Mr Dunwoody saw the book'd caught my attention, 'it's about the history of opticians. What are you about?”
― David Mitchell, Black Swan Green

“You can get anywhere in Pakistan if you know people, even into jail.”
― Salman Rushdie, Shame

“Do you need someone to talk to?" she said gently.
"Oh. Thank you. No, no, I'm fine."
He touched his face – he'd been crying harder than he'd realized.
"You sure? You don't look fine."
"No, really. I've just . . . I've just had a very intense emotional experience." He held out one of his iPod headphones, as if that would explain it. "On here."
"You're crying about music?"
The woman looked at him as if he were some kind of pervert.
"Well," said Duncan. "I'm not crying about it. I'm not sure that's the right preposition."
She shook her head and walked off.”
― Nick Hornby, Juliet, Naked

“Right, my phone. When these things first appeared, they were so cool. Only when it was too late did people realize they are as cool as electronic tags on remand prisoners.”
― David Mitchell, Ghostwritten

“Two old people in a room devoid of furniture, steam rising from their teacups. They were motionless and expressionless. Waiting for something. I wish I could go into their room and sit down with them. I'd give them my Rolex for that. I wish they would smile, and pour me a cup of jasmine tea. I wish the world was like that.”
― David Mitchell, Ghostwritten

“Maybe nobody went to see the Rolling Stones here in 1964,' said Ros. 'The dead shark was just too much fun.”
― Nick Hornby, Juliet, Naked

“Részvétet éreztem az ismeretlen sportember iránt, és egyúttal kárörömet is. Úgy kell neki, miért sportember, de ha már sportember, mit keres minálunk. Valószínűleg ő is így érzett volna irányomban, ha a golfpályán látott volna meg engem.”
― Antal Szerb, The Pendragon Legend

“No Scrabble. More and more of his friends were playing it now, in a knowing ironic way, triple-word-score-craving freaks, but it seemed to him like a game designed expressly to make him feel stupid and bored.”
― David Nicholls, One Day

“But I want to see Clara, Charlie's friend, who's right up my street. I want to see her because I don't know where my street is; I don't even know which part of town it's in, which city, which country, so maybe she'll enable me to get my bearings.”
― Nick Hornby, High Fidelity

“Yet for the first time in three days, I want something. I want the forest lord to turn me into a cedar. The very oldest islanders say that if you are in the interior mountains on the night when the forest lord counts his trees, he includes you in the number and turns you into a tree.”
― David Mitchell, Number9Dream

“A book you finish reading is not the same book it was before you read it.”
― David Mitchell, Number9Dream

“Integrity is a bugger, it really is. Lying can get you into difficulties, but to really wind up in the crappers try telling nothing but the truth.”
― David Mitchell, Ghostwritten

“over 85% of all statistics are made up on the spot.”
― David Mitchell, Number9Dream

“Az öreg elkísért a falu végéig, ott azután megmutatta az utat, és megmagyarázta, hogy merre kell mennem. Már akkor nem tetszett nekem a dolog. Mr. Mansfield magyarázatának a lényege az volt, hogy időnként egy bükkfaerdőn kellett keresztülmennem, amit egy nyírfaerdő váltott fel, és egy tölgyfaerdő is nagy szerepet játszott. De én, sajnos, kora ifjúságomtól kezdve városlakó voltam, és a szellemtudományok kizárólagos híve. Sose tudtam két fát megkülönböztetni egymástól.”
― Antal Szerb, The Pendragon Legend

“(…) met the owner of this cozy book-and-candle Apt. G, a tall, leggy, striking girl named Bea or maybe just the letter B or maybe the insect Bee, not sure, her long blond hair pulled in a ponytail, her no-doubt banging body effortlessly buried beneath a pile of tights and sweaters and scarves – she is a walking coat rack – and as we shook hands, Bea fixed me with the most alarming blue-eyed stare of my life, the kind of stare in which you think some potent subliminal message is being passed along (Run away with me or maybe just Run away), (…)”
― Jess Walter, The Financial Lives of the Poets

“Alarmingly, though, on top of the bookcase there is also a family portrait of Bea with two just-as-striking blond-and-blue-eyed sisters and a pair of handsome proud Nordic parents, whose stares make me aware of the vast age difference between Bea and me, and I am profoundly ashamed to be here buying drugs in this girl's apartment. What I'd really like to do, I think, is lie down on this couch and take a nap.”
― Jess Walter

“I don't know what I expected – no
maybe I do, Al Pacino from Scarface-
but this drug dealer is more like Al Pacino
at the beginning of The Godfather
reasonably bemused, untouched by his
criminal world, sitting with Diane Keaton
whispering about Luca Brazzi, not yet asleep
with the fishes, or like Al Pacino
from Glengarry Glen Ross, although actually,
now that I think about it, he's not
like Al Pacino at all but more like
Kevin Spacey from that film, and who's
ever been afraid of Kevin Spacey?”
― Jess Walter, The Financial Lives of the Poets

“(…) my money guy Richard is going without a tie now, like a politician who wants to appeal to the suffering common man (or perhaps every morning his firm takes the ties and shoelaces away from the brokers and financial planners to keep them from offing themselves)”
― Jess Walter, The Financial Lives of the Poets

“„Listen,” Richard says, „unless you're about to inherit some money, what we're talking about here is irreversible, fatal. You have fiscal Ebola, Matt. You are bleeding out through your nose and your mouth and your eye sockets, from your financial asshole.”
See! Fiscal Ebola? My financial asshole is bleeding? This was exactly why I started poetfolio.com; there are money poets everywhere.”
― Jess Walter, The Financial Lives of the Poets

“„I don't think you put the swear word in the right place, Grandpa,” Teddy says. When Dad first came here, my boys would look shocked whenever Dad went Old-Faithful-profane, and I began to wonder if Lisa and I shouldn't swear more so Franklin and Teddy weren't so put off by curse words.”
― Jess Walter, The Financial Lives of the Poets

“You say you're 'depressed' - all i see is resilience. You are allowed to feel messed up and inside out. It doesn't mean you're defective - it just means you're human.”
― David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

“The better organized the state, the duller its humanity.”
― David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

“Unlimited power in the hands of limited people always leads to cruelty.”
― David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

“Whoever opined "Money can't buy you happiness" obviously had far too much of the stuff.”
― David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

“Now I seen Mauna Kena from Honokaa b'fore, o'course, but a mountain you're planning on climbin' ain't the same as the one you ain't. It ain't so pretty, nay.”
― David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

“People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life.

A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave.

A soul mates purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master...”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love