If the human condition were the periodic table, maybe love would be hydrogen at No. 1. Death would be helium at No. 2. Power, I reckon, would be where oxygen is. – David Mitchell
A life can get knocked into a new orbit by a car crash, a lottery win or just a bleary-eyed consultant giving bad news in a calm voice. – David Mitchell
In the 1970s and 1980s there was so little decent fiction for young people, but were now in a golden age that shows no sign of fading. Philip Pullman, J. K. Rowling, Lemony Snicket are only three of the best known among a good number of equals. – David Mitchell
Many children are natural fantasists, I think, perhaps because their imaginations have yet to be clobbered into submission by experience. – David Mitchell
Creation destroys as it goes, throws down one tree for the rise of another. But ideal mankind would abolish death, multiply itself million upon million, rear up city upon city, save every parasite alive, until the accumulation of mere existence is swollen to a horror. – David Herbert Lawrence