Quotes from Cloud Atlas

“My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?”
― David Mitchell, quote from Cloud Atlas

“A half-read book is a half-finished love affair.”
― David Mitchell, quote from Cloud Atlas

“Our lives are not our own. We are bound to others, past and present, and by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future.”
― David Mitchell, quote from Cloud Atlas

“Travel far enough, you meet yourself.”
― David Mitchell, quote from Cloud Atlas

“Books don't offer real escape, but they can stop a mind scratching itself raw.”
― David Mitchell, quote from Cloud Atlas

“I believe there is another world waiting for us. A better world. And I'll be waiting for you there.”
― David Mitchell, quote from Cloud Atlas

“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, quote from Cloud Atlas

“Power, time, gravity, love. The forces that really kick ass are all invisible.”
― David Mitchell, quote from Cloud Atlas

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

“Fantasy. Lunacy.
All revolutions are, until they happen, then they are historical inevitabilities.”
― David Mitchell, quote from Cloud Atlas

“Souls cross ages like clouds cross skies, an' tho' a cloud's shape nor hue nor size don't stay the same, it's still a cloud an' so is a soul. Who can say where the cloud's blowed from or who the soul'll be 'morrow? Only Sonmi the east an' the west an' the compass an' the atlas, yay, only the atlas o' clouds.”
― David Mitchell, quote from Cloud Atlas

“...there ain't no journey what don't change you some.”
― David Mitchell, quote from Cloud Atlas

“We are only what we know, and I wished to be so much more than I was, sorely.”
― David Mitchell, quote from Cloud Atlas

“Truth is singular. Its 'versions' are mistruths.”
― David Mitchell, quote from Cloud Atlas

“Belief, like fear or love, is a force to be understood as we understand the theory of relativity and principals of uncertainty. Phenomena that determine the course of our lives. Yesterday, my life was headed in one direction. Today, it is headed in another. Yesterday, I believe I would never have done what I did today. These forces that often remake time and space, that can shape and alter who we
imagine ourselves to be, begin long before we are born and continue after we perish. Our lives and our choices, like quantum trajectories, are understood moment to moment. That each point of intersection, each encounter, suggest a new potential direction. Proposition, I have fallen in love with Luisa Rey. Is this possible? I just met her and yet, I feel like something important has happened to me.”
― David Mitchell, quote from Cloud Atlas

“We looked at each other for the last time; nothing is as eloquent as nothing.”
― David Mitchell, quote from Cloud Atlas

“Time is what stops history happening at once; time is the speed at which the past disappears.”
― David Mitchell, quote from Cloud Atlas

“What wouldn't I give now for a never-changing map of the ever-constant ineffable? To possess, as it were, an atlas of clouds.”
― David Mitchell, quote from Cloud Atlas

“What is any ocean but a multitude of drops?”
― David Mitchell, quote from Cloud Atlas

“...now I'm a spent firework; but at least I've been a firework.”
― David Mitchell, quote from Cloud Atlas

“. . .my dreams are the single unpredictable factor in my zoned days and nights. Nobody allots them, or censors them. Dreams are all I have ever truly owned.”
― David Mitchell, quote from Cloud Atlas

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

“In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul; for the human species, selfishness is extinction.”
― David Mitchell, quote from Cloud Atlas

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

“I understand now that boundaries between noise and sound are conventions. All boundaries are conventions, waiting to be transcended. One may transcend any convention if only one can first conceive of doing so.”
― David Mitchell, quote from Cloud Atlas

“One fine day a predatory world shall consume itself.”
― David Mitchell, quote from Cloud Atlas

“& only as you gasp your dying breath shall you understand, your life amounted to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean!
Yet what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?”
― David Mitchell, quote from Cloud Atlas

“History admits no rules; only outcomes.”
― David Mitchell, quote from Cloud Atlas

“Three or four times only in my youth did I glimpse the Joyous Isles, before they were lost to fogs, depressions, cold fronts, ill winds, and contrary tides... I mistook them for adulthood. Assuming they were a fixed feature in my life's voyage, I neglected to record their latitude, their longitude, their approach. Young ruddy fool. What wouldn't I give now for a never-changing map of the ever-constant ineffable? To possess, as it were, an atlas of clouds.”
― David Mitchell, quote from Cloud Atlas

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“Perhaps it is better not to tell what you wish. if you cannot have it.”
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“A Roman came to Rabbi Gimzo the Water Carrier, and asked, "What is this study of the law that you Jews engage in?" and Gimzo replied, "I shall explain. There were two men on a roof, and they climbed down the chimney. One's face became sooty. The other's not. Which one washed his face?" The Roman said, "That's easy, the sooty one, of course." Gimzo said, "No. The man without the soot looked at his friend, saw that the man's face was dirty, assumed that his was too, and washed it." Cried the Roman, "Ah ha! So that's the study of law. Sound reasoning." But Gimzo said, "You foolish man, you don't understand. Let me explain again. Two men on a roof. They climb down a chimney. One's face is sooty, the other's not. Which one washes?" The Roman said, "As you just explained, the man without the soot." Gimzo cried,"No, you foolish one! There was a mirror on the wall and the man with the dirty face saw how sooty it was and washed it." The Roman said, "Ah ha! So that's the study of law! Conforming to the logical." But Rabbi Gimzo said, "No, you foolish one. Two men climbed down the chimney. One's face became sooty? The other's not? That's impossible. You're wasting my time with such a proposition." And the Roman said, "So that's the law! Common sense." And Gimzo said, "You foolish man! Of course it was possible. When the first man climbed down the chimney he brushed the soot away. So the man who followed found none to mar him." And the Roman cried, "That's brilliant, Rabbi Gimzo. Law is getting at the basic facts." And for the last time Gimzo said, "No, you foolish man. Who could brush all the soot from a chimney? Who could ever understand all the facts?" Humbly the Roman asked, "Then what is the law?" And Gimzo said quietly, "It's doing the best we can to ascertain God's intention, for there were indeed two men on a roof, and they did climb down the same chimney. The first man emerged completely clean while it was the second who was covered with soot, and neither man washed his face, because you forgot to ask me whether there was any water in the basin. There was none.”
― James A. Michener, quote from The Source

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