David Mitchell Quotes

It is not often that we use language correctly; usually we use it incorrectly, though we understand each others meaning.

It's technically extremely difficult to get down what you really mean, not what you think you mean, or what you think sounds good, but what's really there, what you really have to express, in words that somehow convey that meaning in an approximate way.

Words exist because of meaning; once you’ve gotten the meaning, you can forget the words.

The duty of the words is to say just as much as the music has left unsaid and no more.

The subject itself is of no account; what matters is the way it is presented.

Language is the light of the mind

Art is a word which summarizes the quality of communication.

People laugh at me because I use big words. But if you have big ideas, you have to use big words to express them, haven't you?

A picture can say 1000 words but it can also inspire you to write 1000 more.

The writer is the midwife of understanding.

I like delivering a message, but what I find interesting is providing those details in a different context. Then the readers can make up their minds what it means.

Reading with an eye towards metaphor allows us to become the person we’re reading about, while reading about them. That’s why there is symbols in books and why your English teacher deserves your attention. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter if the author intended the symbol to be there because the job of reading is not to understand the author’s intent. The job of reading is to use stories as a way into seeing other people as a we ourselves.

I could have a job as a teacher because I like talking in front of people.

GIFT You tell me that silence is nearer to peace than poems but if for my gift I brought you silence (for I know silence) you would say This is not silence this is another poem and you would hand it back to me

Thus the feeling I sometimes have - which all of us who work closely with aphasiacs have - that one cannot lie to an aphasiac. He cannot grasp your words, and cannot be deceived by them; but what he grasps he grasps with infallible precision, namely the expression that goes with the words, the total, spontaneous, involuntary expressiveness which can never be simulated or faked, as words alone can, too easily.

I think sometimes a narrative can come out of a single word.

Words are like Leaves; and where they most abound, Much Fruit of Sense beneath is rarely found.

The human language, as precise as it is with its thousands of words, can still be so wonderfully vague.

Words are like eyeglasses they blur everything that they do not make clear.

Vague expression permits the hearer to imagine whatever suits him and what he already thinks in any case.

I have a feeling that in art the need to understand and the need to communicate are one.

Language is the most beautiful and destructive thing because it allows you to express yourself, but it totally confuses everything.

Inevitably, almost everything we say is either quotation or paraphrase.

What is one man's hate speech is another man's poetry.

Never try to convey your idea to the audience - it is a thankless and senseless task. Show them life, and they'll find within themselves the means to assess and appreciate it.