Quotes by David Nicholls

“My wife, Alex rides him every day and has always said hes a good horse,”

“Hes had quite a hard season for a young horse so maybe well see him next year, or maybe well see him at the back end of this year,”

“Well play it by ear. Hes in good form himself so well just have to see on a weekly basis.”

“I dont think this is really his trip as he would probably prefer six furlongs but he was given a great ride by Adrian -- if hed gone round them then he wouldnt have won.”

This is where it all begins. Everything starts here, today.

Youre gorgeous, you old hag, and if I could give you just one gift ever for the rest of your life it would be this. Confidence. It would be the gift of confidence. Either that or a scented candle

You can live your whole life not realizing that what youre looking for is right in front of you.

Can I say something?Go onIm a little drunkMe too. Thats okay.Just....I missed you, you know.I missed you too.But so, so much, Dexter. There were so many things I wanted to talk to you about, and you werent there-same here.I tell you what it is. Its.....When I didnt see you, I thought about you every day, I mean EVERY DAY in some way or another-same here.-Even if it was just I wish Dexter could see this or Wheres Dexter now? or Christ that Dexter, what an idiot, you know what I mean, and seeing you today, well, I thought Id got you back - my BEST friend. And now all this, the wedding, the baby- Im so happy for you, Dex, but it feels like Ive lost you again.--You know what happens you have a family, your responsibilities change, you lose touch with peopleIt wont be like that, I promise.Do you?AbsolutelyYou swear? No more disappearing?I wont if you wont.Their lips touched now, mouths pursed tight, their eyes open, both of them stock still. The moment held, a kind of glorious confusion.

Dexter, I love you so much. So, so much, and I probably always will. I just dont like you anymore. Im sorry.

What are you going to do with your life? In one way or another it seemed that people had been asking her this forever; teachers, her parents, friends at three in the morning, but the question had never seemed this pressing and still she was no nearer an answer... Live each day as if its your last, that was the conventional advice, but really, who had the energy for that? What if it rained or you felt a bit glandy? It just wasnt practical. Better by far to be good and courageous and bold and to make difference. Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you. Cherish your friends, stay true to your principles, live passionately and fully and well. Experience new things. Love and be loved, if you ever get the chance.

You know what I cant understand? You have all these people telling you all the time how great you are, smart and funny and talented and all that, I mean endlessly, Ive been telling you for years. So why dont you believe it? why do you think people say that stuff, Em? Do you think its a conspiracy, people secretly ganging up to be nice about you?

Call me sentimental, but theres no-one in the world that Id like to see get dysentery more than you

This is me.’ He handed her the precious scrap of paper. ‘Call me or I’ll call you, but one of us will call, yes? What I mean is it’s not a competition. You don’t lose if you phone first.

Happyish. Well, happyish isnt so bad.Its the most we can hope for.

She drinks pints of coffee and writes little observations and ideas for stories with her best fountain pen on the linen-white pages of expensive notebooks. Sometimes, when its going badly, she wonders if what she believes to be a love of the written word is really just a fetish for stationery.

For his thirtieth birthday he had filled a whole night-club off Regent Street; people had been queuing on the pavement to get in. The SIM card of his mobile phone in his pocket was overflowing with telephone numbers of all the hundreds of people he had met in the last ten years, and yet the only person he had ever wanted to talk to in all that time was standing now in the very next room.

No, this, she felt, was real life and if she wasn’t as curious or passionate as she had once been, that was only to be expected. It would be inappropriate, undignified, at thirty-eight, to conduct friendships or love affairs with the ardour and intensity of a twenty-two-year-old. Falling in love like that? Writing poetry, crying at pop songs? Dragging people into photo-booths, taking a whole day to make a compilation tape, asking people if they wanted to share your bed, just for company? If you quoted Bob Dylan or T.S. Eliot or, God forbid, Brecht at someone these days they would smile politely and step quietly backwards, and who would blame them? Ridiculous, at thirty-eight, to expect a song or book or film to change your life. No, everything had evened out and settled down and life was lived against a general background hum of comfort, satisfaction and familiarity. There would be no more of these nerve-jangling highs and lows. The friends they had now would be the friends they had in five, ten, twenty years’ time. They expected to get neither dramatically richer or poorer; they expected to stay healthy for a little while yet. Caught in the middle; middle class, middle-aged; happy in that they were not overly happy. Finally, she loved someone and felt fairly confident that she was loved in return. If someone asked Emma, as they sometimes did at parties, how she and her husband had met, she told them:‘We grew up together.

He could feel her laughter against his chest, and at that moment he thought that there was no better feeling than making Emma Morley laugh.

He put one hand lightly on the back of her neck and simultaneously she placed one hand lightly on his hip, and they kissed in the street as all around them people hurried home in the summer light, and it was the sweetest kiss that either of them would ever know. This is where it all begins. Everything starts here, today. And then it was over.

What if it rained or you felt a bit glandy? It just wasnt practical. Better by far to simply try and be good and courageous and bold and to make a difference. Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you.