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The Bone Clocks QUOTES

The Bone Clocks QUOTES

181 " I play chess on my iPhone, and indulge in a fond fantasy that my opponent isn't a mind of digital code but Dad: It's Dad's attacks I repel; Dad's defenses I dismantle; Dad's king scurrying around the board to prolong the inevitable. "

― David Mitchell , The Bone Clocks

182 " Because the script was written referring not to Iraq as it was, but to a fantasy Iraq as Rumsfeld, Rice, and Bush et al. wanted it to be, or dreamt it to be, or were promised by their pet Iraqis-in-exile it would be. They expected to find a unified state like Japan in 1945. Instead, they found a perpetual civil war among majority Shi’a Arabs, minority Sunni Arabs, and Kurds. Saddam Hussein—a Sunni—had imposed a brutal peace on the country, but with him gone, the civil war reheated, and now it’s … erupted, and the CPA is embroiled. When you’re in control, neutrality isn’t possible. "

― David Mitchell , The Bone Clocks

183 " Writing novels worth reading will bugger up your mind, jeopardize your relationships, and distend your life. "

― David Mitchell , The Bone Clocks

184 " Heresy is fissiparous, however. "

― David Mitchell , The Bone Clocks

185 " A blue jay swoops onto a fungus-ruffled tree-stump by Hershey’s grave, emits a volley of harsh jeers, then a breathy trill. "

― David Mitchell , The Bone Clocks

186 " The blue jay threads a flight-path through stripes of brightness and stripes of mossy dark. "

― David Mitchell , The Bone Clocks

187 " Control is about fear, see. If you’re afraid enough of the reprisals, you don’t say no, you don’t fight back, you don’t run away. Saying yes is how you survive. It becomes normal. "

― David Mitchell , The Bone Clocks

188 " they stand still as the world eddies about them. "

― David Mitchell , The Bone Clocks

189 " Sometimes,” Brubeck bites into an apple, “sometimes I want to be everywhere, all at once, so badly I could just …” Brubeck mimes a bomb going off in his ribcage. “Do you never get that feeling? "

― David Mitchell , The Bone Clocks

190 " Miguel tries to look jokey-penitent, but misses and looks like a man in white jeans who underestimates a spot of flatulence. "

― David Mitchell , The Bone Clocks

191 " Remember that a sincere apology never diminishes the apologizer. "

― David Mitchell , The Bone Clocks

192 " But it’s not time that matters. It felt … like a secret place just us two knew about. "

― David Mitchell , The Bone Clocks

193 " Now smoking really is an expression of the rebel spirit—it’s virtually sodding illegal! Yet what are we without our addictions? Insipid. Flavorless. Careerless! "

― David Mitchell , The Bone Clocks

194 " My in-ear Babelfish provides synopses of the passages rather than a running translation, but now and then the interpreter confesses, “I’m sorry, but I have no idea what he just said. I’m not sure the author knew, either. "

― David Mitchell , The Bone Clocks

195 " Holly slides off the chairlift like a gymnast, and I slide off like a sack of hammers. "

― David Mitchell , The Bone Clocks

196 " think of Big Mac’s aphorism: In order to have sex, women need to feel loved; but in order for men to feel loved, we need to have sex. "

― David Mitchell , The Bone Clocks

197 " Psychological complexity, character development, the killer line to end a scene, villains blotched with virtue, heroic characters speckled with villainy, foreshadow and backflash, artful misdirection. "

― David Mitchell , The Bone Clocks

198 " Letting it go feels so sodding liberating. "

― David Mitchell , The Bone Clocks

199 " A salaam aleikum.” The elderly Irishwoman has a foamy cloud of white hair and a zigzag cashmere poncho. You wouldn’t cross her. "

― David Mitchell , The Bone Clocks

200 " I light up, fumigate my alveolar sacs and think dark thoughts "

― David Mitchell , The Bone Clocks