A life can get knocked into a new orbit by a car crash, a lottery win or just a bleary-eyed consultant giving bad news in a calm voice.

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• David Mitchell:

  When I was about 14, in about 1984, I decided to become a great poet. Faber & Faber was going to pu

• David Mitchell:

  There's a disease that young writers are susceptible to, which is, I will do this because I can - h

• David Mitchell:

  Historically, unfortunately, race seems to be the major division that humanity has imposed on itsel

• David Mitchell:

  There's been very little writing about speech impediments, even though it's this huge psychological

• David Mitchell:

  I still haven't quite got used to eating live fish.

• David Mitchell:

  Japanese food makes me feel particularly good.

• David Mitchell:

  Loneliness is an integral part of travelling. I used to think it was the downside to travelling, bu

• David Mitchell:

  When you're out of your own cultural context you have conversations with yourself that you just don

• David Mitchell:

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

• David Mitchell:

  I'm a novelist, that's how I make my livelihood, and I concentrate on the novels.