David Mitchell

Writing is probably one-fifth coming up with the stuff, and four-fifths self-editing again and again and again.

I've become a less brave traveller since I became a dad, but in the past I was more foolhardy than brave.

I'm not a great deep political thinker.

I don't have problems starting writing. I have problems stopping. I'm one of the last dads to arrive at school to collect the kids, because I want to get this paragraph just right.

A novelist needs to know his own strong points and weak points.

Writers are so used to books being optioned and then the movie never happens.

Loneliness is an integral part of travelling. I used to think it was the downside to travelling, but now I realise it is a necessary educative part of it to be embraced.

People like to say that East Asians in general, and Japanese in particular, are not very expressive: there's that term 'inscrutable.' But often, Europeans just don't get the Asian codes. Believe me, the message is being expressed OK.

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.

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.

I love HBO productions, actually, like 'The Wire.'

For me, novels coalesce into being, rather than arrive fully formed.