3 December 2020 David Mitchell Every relationship has its own language. It takes a long time to evolve and read one another. Just as it’s true for people, it’s also true on a national or cultural level.
3 December 2020 David Mitchell In the 1970s and 1980s there was so little decent fiction for young people, but we’re 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.
3 December 2020 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.
3 December 2020 David Mitchell 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.
3 December 2020 David Mitchell I’ve become a less brave traveller since I became a dad, but in the past I was more foolhardy than brave.
3 December 2020 David Mitchell Many children are natural fantasists, I think, perhaps because their imaginations have yet to be clobbered into submission by experience.
3 December 2020 David Mitchell As long as our civilisation keeps trundling along generally forwards, then there is the possibility of a future where ethnicity is merely an interesting badge, not a uniform you can’t take off.
