David Mitchell
David Mitchell
English stand up comedian and half of the comedy duo Mitchell and Webb, alongside Robert Webb. He is best known for starring in and writing the Channel 4 series Peep Show, for which he won the British Academy Television Award for Best Comedy Performance in 2009. He has also written and starred in several sketch shows including The Mitchell and Webb Situation, That Mitchell and Webb Sound and, That Mitchell and Webb Look.
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionComedian
Date of Birth14 July 1974
CitySalisbury, England
A novelist needs to know his own strong points and weak points.
Sometimes, comics will make the observation that it's not jokes that are funny, it's characters that are funny. And isn't that true! That's why I always kill jokes. I'm terrible at them, because I get the joke right, but I can't get the character right, and it just goes down like a lead balloon.
I think the story is the most ancient form of human entertainment.
I think we think in terms of stories.
I think words operate like musical notes that the eyeball hears.
Your turn has come to sift through the dreck of humanity for rare specks of originality
Who was blowing on the nape of my neck.
We are both busy people, so let's cut the small talk.
Torturous advances won over generations can be lost by a single stroke of a myopic president's pen or a vainglorious general's sword.
As long as our civilisation keeps trundling along generally forwards, then there is the possibility of a future where ethnicity is merely an interesting badge, not a uniform you can't take off.
Write something every single day, even if it's just three lines. And it doesn't matter if it's any good - just write something every day.
I've become a less brave traveller since I became a dad, but in the past I was more foolhardy than brave.
I'm a novelist, that's how I make my livelihood, and I concentrate on the novels.
Taro taught me that people respect spirit, but even cowards don't respect cowards.