David Mitchell · 479 pages
Rating: (44.5K votes)
“Gulls wheel through spokes of sunlight over gracious roofs and dowdy thatch, snatching entrails at the marketplace and escaping over cloistered gardens, spike topped walls and treble-bolted doors. Gulls alight on whitewashed gables, creaking pagodas and dung-ripe stables; circle over towers and cavernous bells and over hidden squares where urns of urine sit by covered wells, watched by mule-drivers, mules and wolf-snouted dogs, ignored by hunch-backed makers of clogs; gather speed up the stoned-in Nakashima River and fly beneath the arches of its bridges, glimpsed form kitchen doors, watched by farmers walking high, stony ridges. Gulls fly through clouds of steam from laundries' vats; over kites unthreading corpses of cats; over scholars glimpsing truth in fragile patterns; over bath-house adulterers, heartbroken slatterns; fishwives dismembering lobsters and crabs; their husbands gutting mackerel on slabs; woodcutters' sons sharpening axes; candle-makers, rolling waxes; flint-eyed officials milking taxes; etiolated lacquerers; mottle-skinned dyers; imprecise soothsayers; unblinking liars; weavers of mats; cutters of rushes; ink-lipped calligraphers dipping brushes; booksellers ruined by unsold books; ladies-in-waiting; tasters; dressers; filching page-boys; runny-nosed cooks; sunless attic nooks where seamstresses prick calloused fingers; limping malingerers; swineherds; swindlers; lip-chewed debtors rich in excuses; heard-it-all creditors tightening nooses; prisoners haunted by happier lives and ageing rakes by other men's wives; skeletal tutors goaded to fits; firemen-turned-looters when occasion permits; tongue-tied witnesses; purchased judges; mothers-in-law nurturing briars and grudges; apothecaries grinding powders with mortars; palanquins carrying not-yet-wed daughters; silent nuns; nine-year-old whores; the once-were-beautiful gnawed by sores; statues of Jizo anointed with posies; syphilitics sneezing through rotted-off noses; potters; barbers; hawkers of oil; tanners; cutlers; carters of night-soil; gate-keepers; bee-keepers; blacksmiths and drapers; torturers; wet-nurses; perjurers; cut-purses; the newborn; the growing; the strong-willed and pliant; the ailing; the dying; the weak and defiant; over the roof of a painter withdrawn first from the world, then his family, and down into a masterpiece that has, in the end, withdrawn from its creator; and around again, where their flight began, over the balcony of the Room of Last Chrysanthemum, where a puddle from last night's rain is evaporating; a puddle in which Magistrate Shiroyama observes the blurred reflections of gulls wheeling through spokes of sunlight. This world, he thinks, contains just one masterpiece, and that is itself.”
― David Mitchell, quote from The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
“The truth of a myth...is not in its words but its patterns.”
― David Mitchell, quote from The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
“The soul is a verb." He impales a lit candle on a spike. "Not a noun.”
― David Mitchell, quote from The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
“Creation never ceased on the sixth evening, it occurs to the young man. Creation unfolds around us, despite us and through us at the speed of days and nights. And we call it love.”
― David Mitchell, quote from The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
“So little is actually worthy of belief or disbelief. Better to strive to coexist than seek to disapprove . . .”
― David Mitchell, quote from The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
“If only,’ Shiroyama dreams, ‘human beings were not masks behind masks behind masks. If only this world was a clean board of lines and intersections. If only time was a sequence of considered moves and not a chaos of slippages and blunders.”
― David Mitchell, quote from The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
“Creation unfolds, around us, despite us and through us, at the speed of days and nights, and we like to call it "love”
― David Mitchell, quote from The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
“This world, he thinks, contains just one masterpiece, and that is itself.”
― David Mitchell, quote from The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
“Act, implores the Ghost of Future Regret. I shan't give you another chance.”
― David Mitchell, quote from The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
“The mind has a mind of its own. It shows us pictures. Pictures of the past and the might-one-day-be. This mind's mind exerts its own will, too, and has its own voice.”
― David Mitchell, quote from The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
“How gleefully life shreds our well crafted plans.”
― David Mitchell, quote from The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
“For white men, to live is to own, or to try to own more, or to die trying to own more. Their appetites are astonishing! They own wardrobes, slaves, carriages, houses, warehouses, and ships. They own ports, cities, plantations, valleys, mountains, chains of islands. They own this world, its jungles, its skies, and its seas. Yet they complain that Dejima is a prison. They complain they are not free.”
― David Mitchell, quote from The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
“The soul is a verb. . . . Not a noun.”
― David Mitchell, quote from The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
“The music provokes a sharp longing the music soothes.”
― David Mitchell, quote from The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
“Act', implores the Ghost of Future Regret. 'I shan't give you another chance'. [and so Jacob does] 'Damned fool,' groans the Demon of Present Regret. 'What have you done?”
― David Mitchell, quote from The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
“Self pity, Orito reminds herself yet again, is a noose dangling from a rafter.”
― David Mitchell, quote from The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
“Naming, thinks Jacob, even in ridicule, gives what is named substance.”
― David Mitchell, quote from The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
“Don't let death, Jacob reproves himself, be your final thought.”
― David Mitchell, quote from The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
“What man ain't the honestest cove in his own eyes?" Grote's round face is a bronze moon in the dark. "'Tain't good intentions what paves the road to hell: it's self-justifyin's.”
― David Mitchell, quote from The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
“I could tell you a hundred things, thinks Jacob, and nothing at all.”
― David Mitchell, quote from The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
“The rain's innumerable hooves spatter on the streets and roofs.”
― David Mitchell, quote from The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
“The clock’s pendulum catches the firelight, and in the rattle-breathed final moments of Jacob de Zoet, amber shadows in the far corner coagulate into a woman’s form.
She slips between the bigger, taller onlookers unnoticed …
… and adjusts her headscarf, the better to hide her burn.
She places her cool palms on Jacob’s fever-glazed face.
Jacob sees himself, when he was young, in her narrow eyes.
Her lips touch the place between his eyebrows.
A well-waxed paper door slides open.”
― David Mitchell, quote from The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
“We were, to quote the proverb,
"The one dog who barks at nothing answered by a thousand dogs barking at something...”
― David Mitchell, quote from The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
“I find a certain comfort," confesses Marinus, "in humanity's helplessness.”
― David Mitchell, quote from The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
“Dust is gold in the light of dawn.”
― David Mitchell, quote from The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
“Killing depends on circumstances, as you'd expect, whether it's a cold, planned murder, or a hot death in a fight, or inspired by honor or a more shameful motive. However many times you kill, though, it's the first that matters. It's a man's first blood that banishes him from the world of the ordinary.”
― David Mitchell, quote from The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
“Loyalty looks simple... but it ain't.”
― David Mitchell, quote from The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
David Mitchell
Born place: in Southport, The United Kingdom
Born date January 12, 1969
See more on GoodReads
“I have no regrets. To regret my past would be to admit I am not satisfied with who or what I have become. Everything I have accomplished and all I have been exposed to – good or evil – has created what sits before you. If I look solely at the reflection I make today, I stand proud. So in short, no Parker, I don’t have things I regret,” he grinned softly as if satisfied with his response.”
― Scott Hildreth, quote from Finding Parker
“Sometimes there's other reason for helping, other than personal gain or benefit," added Sam softly. "Friendship, companionship, trust and love are not confined to light alone...they are harder won, fewer seen...but no less real.”
― quote from Villains by Necessity
“In a garden, things grow . . . but first, they must wither; trees have to lose their leaves in order to put forth new leaves, and to grow thicker and stronger and taller. Some trees die, but fresh saplings replace them. Gardens need a lot of care. But if you love your garden, you don’t mind working in it, and waiting. Then in the proper season you will surely see it flourish.”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from Being There
“Ildiko shuddered. Her hope to never again see or eat the Kai’s most beloved and revolting delicacy had been in vain. When Brishen informed her that the dish was one of Serovek’s favorites, she resigned herself to another culinary battle with her food and put the scarpatine on the menu. She ordered roasted potatoes as well, much to the head cook’s disgust.
When servants brought out the food and set it on the table, Brishen leaned close and whispered in her ear. “Revenge, wife?”
“Hardly,” she replied, keeping a wary eye on the pie closest to her. The golden top crust, with its sprinkle of sparkling salt, pitched in a lazy undulation. “But I’m starving, and I have no intention of filling up on that abomination.”
Their guest of honor didn’t share their dislike of either food. As deft as any Kai, Serovek made short work of the scarpatine and its whipping tail, cleaved open the shell with his knife and took a generous bite of the steaming gray meat.
Ildiko’s stomach heaved. She forgot her nausea when Serovek complimented her. “An excellent choice to pair the scarpatine with the potato, Your Highness. They are better together than apart.”
Beside her, Brishen choked into his goblet. He wiped his mouth with his sanap. “What a waste of good scarpatine,” he muttered under his breath.
What a waste of a nice potato, she thought. However, the more she thought on Serovek’s remark, the more her amusement grew.
“And what has you smiling so brightly?” Brishen stared at her, his lambent eyes glowing nearly white in the hall’s torchlight.
She glanced at Serovek, happily cleaning his plate and shooting the occasional glance at Anhuset nearby. Brishen’s cousin refused to meet his gaze, but Ildiko had caught the woman watching the Beladine lord more than a few times during dinner.
“That’s us, you know,” she said.
“What is us?”
“The scarpatine and the potato. Better together than alone. At least I think so.”
One of Brishen’s eyebrows slid upward. “I thought we were hag and dead eel. I think I like those comparisons more.” He shoved his barely-touched potato to the edge of his plate with his knife tip, upper lip curled in revulsion to reveal a gleaming white fang.
Ildiko laughed and stabbed a piece of the potato off his plate. She popped it into her mouth and chewed with gusto, eager to blunt the taste of scarpatine still lingering on her tongue.”
― Grace Draven, quote from Radiance
“It is nearly impossible to feel anything negative in here. Because you’re really connected, to everything, here… but it’s only meant to be a temporary sanctuary, a place to remember yourself. In time you’ll want your negative thoughts, your emotional baggage back, and you’ll have hopefully bolstered yourself enough with the Sanctum’s reminder of your Source that you can come out with fresh perspective. When you’ve had enough of it, you’ll know, and then come and join us outside.”
― Colleen Chen, quote from Dysmorphic Kingdom
Act Like a Lady, Thi...
Tales of Sex & Subur...
My Country 'Tis of T...
Long After
BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.
