{
  "type": "quote",
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  "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-mitchell/cloud-atlas/we-by-whom-i-mean",
  "json": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-mitchell/cloud-atlas/we-by-whom-i-mean.json",
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  "id": "0c77bc33-ee95-45fd-86af-3a3290a8898b",
  "slug": "we-by-whom-i-mean",
  "text": "We–by whom I mean anyone over sixty—commit two offenses just by existing. One is Lack of Velocity. We drive too slowly, walk too slowly, talk too slowly. The world will do business with dictators, perverts, and drugs barons of all stripes, but being slowed down it cannot abide. Our second offense is being Everyman's memento mori. The world can only get comfy in shiny-eyed denial if we are out of sight.",
  "language": "en",
  "author": {
    "name": "David Mitchell",
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  "book": {
    "title": "Cloud Atlas",
    "slug": "cloud-atlas",
    "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-mitchell/cloud-atlas"
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  "page": 360,
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      "name": "death",
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    {
      "name": "old age",
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    "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Cloud_Atlas_(novel)#The_Ghastly_Ordeal_of_Timothy_Cavendish_(Part_2)",
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      "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0",
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  "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:03:57",
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      "slug": "i-hear-my-father-in-laws",
      "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-mitchell/cloud-atlas/i-hear-my-father-in-laws",
      "text": "I hear my father-in-law's response[...] \"Naïve, dreaming Adam. He who would do battle with the many-headed hydra of human nature must pay a world of pain & his family must pay it along with him! & only as you gasp your dying breath shall you understand, your life amounted to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean!\"\n\nYet what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?",
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      "chapter": null,
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      "page": 508,
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      "topics": [
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          "name": "hope",
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        },
        {
          "name": "taking action",
          "slug": "taking-action",
          "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/taking-action"
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      ],
      "source": {
        "name": "Wikiquote",
        "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Cloud_Atlas_(novel)#The_Pacific_Journal_of_Adam_Ewing_(Part_2)",
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      "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:03:57"
    },
    {
      "id": "eafe3abc-8842-4458-89d5-58763a5b265e",
      "slug": "books-dont-offer",
      "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-mitchell/cloud-atlas/books-dont-offer",
      "text": "Books don't offer real escape but they can stop a mind scratching itself raw.",
      "language": "en",
      "character": null,
      "chapter": null,
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      "verified": false,
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      "topics": [
        {
          "name": "reading",
          "slug": "reading",
          "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reading"
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      ],
      "source": {
        "name": "Wikiquote",
        "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Cloud_Atlas_(novel)#Letters_from_Zedelghem_(Part_2)",
        "license": {
          "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0",
          "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
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    },
    {
      "id": "e0b437a5-84a1-40f9-8732-285bcaefb089",
      "slug": "many-xpert-witnesses",
      "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-mitchell/cloud-atlas/many-xpert-witnesses",
      "text": "Many xpert witnesses at. our trial denied Declarations could be the work of a fabricant, ascended or otherwise, and maintained it was ghosted by Union or a pureblood Abolitionst.\n\nHow lazily \"xperts\" dismiss what they fail to understand!",
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      "page": 346,
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      "source": {
        "name": "Wikiquote",
        "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Cloud_Atlas_(novel)#An_Orison_of_Sonmi~451_(Part_2)",
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          "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0",
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