Quotes by Nick Hornby

It seems to me that if you place music (and books, probably, and films, and plays, and anything that makes you feel) at the center of your being, then you can’t afford to sort out your love life, start to think of it as the finished product. You’ve got to pick at it, keep it alive and in turmoil, you’ve got to pick at it and unravel it until it all comes apart and you’re compelled to start all over again. Maybe we all live life at too high a pitch, those of us who absorb emotional things all day, and as a consequence we can never feel merely content: we have to be unhappy, or ecstatically, head-over-heels happy, and those states are difficult to achieve within a stable, solid relationship.

A while back, when Dick & Barry & I agreed that what really matters is what you like, not what you *are* like, Barry proposed the idea of a questionnaire for potential partners, a 2 or 3 page multiple-choice document that covered all the music/film/TV/book bases. It was intended: a) to dispense with awkward conversation, and b) to prevent a chap from leaping into bed with someone who might, at a later date, turn out to have every Julio Iglesias record ever made. It amused us at the time... But there was an important & essential truth contained in the idea, and the truth was that these things matter, and its no good pretending that any relationship has a future if your record collections disagree violently, or if your favorite films wouldnt even speak to each other if they met at a party.

You wouldnt believe that so much could change just because a relationship ended.

Everyone disliked their partners at some time or another, she knew that. But she’d spent her hours in the dark wondering whether she’d ever liked him. Would it really have been so much worse to spend those years alone? Why did there have to be someone else in the room while she was eating, watching TV, sleeping?

You had to live in your own bubble. You couldnt force your way into someone elses, because then it wouldnt be a bubble any more.

A while back, when Dick and Barry and I agreed that what really matters is what you like, not what you are like, Barry proposed the idea of a questionnaire for prospective partners.

But I want to see Clara, Charlies friend, whos right up my street. I want to see her because I dont know where my street is; I dont even know which part of town its in, which city, which country, so maybe shell enable me to get my bearings.

Hes a sweet man whose crime was that he didnt love me quite enough, and because this wasnt much of a crime I had to make up some bigger ones.

This time, something different happens, though. It’s the daydreaming that does it. I’m doing the usualthing—imagining in tiny detail the entire course of the relationship, from first kiss, to bed, to moving intogether, to getting married (in the past I have even organized the track listing of the party tapes), to howpretty she’ll look when she’s pregnant, to names of children—until suddenly I realize that there’snothing left to actually, like, happen. I’ve done it all, lived through the whole relationship in my head.I’ve watched the film on fast-forward; I know the whole plot, the ending, all the good bit. Now I’ve gotto rewind and watch it all over again in real time, and where’s the fun in that?And fucking … when’s it all going to fucking stop? I’m going to jump from rock to rock for the rest ofmy life until there aren’t any rocks left? I’m going to run each time I get itchy feet? Because I get themabout once a quarter, along with the utilities bills. More than that, even, during British Summer Time.I’ve been thinking with my guts since I was fourteen years old, and frankly speaking, between you andme, I have come to the conclusion that my guts have shit for brains.

Because . . . most of us think that the point is something to do with work, or kids, or family, or whatever. But you dont have any of that. Theres nothing between you and despair, and you dont seem a very desperate person. Too stupid. Youre not stupid. So why dont you ever put your head in the oven? I dont know. Theres always a new Nirvana album to look forward to, or something happening in NYPD Blue to make you want to watch the next episode. Exactly. Thats the point? NYPD Blue? Jesus. It was worse than he thought. No, no. The point is you keep going. You want to. So all the things that make you want to are the point. I dont know if you even realize it, but on the quiet you dont think lifes too bad. You love things. Telly. Music. Food.

I hate time. It never does what you want it to.

Marcus couldnt believe it. Dead. A dead duck. OK, hed been trying to hit it on the head with a piece of sandwich, but he tried to do all sorts of things, and none of them had ever happened before. Hed tried to get the highest score on the Stargazer machine in the kabab shop on Hornsey road - nothing. Hed tried to read Nickys thoughts by staring at the back of his head every maths lesson for a week - nothing. It really annoyed him that the only thing hed ever achieved through trying was something he hadnt really wanted to do that much in the first place. And anyway, since when did hitting a bird with a sandwich ever kill it? People spend half their lives throwing things at the ducks in Regents Park. How come he managed to pick a duck that pathetic?

All the books we own, both read and unread, are the fullest expression of self we have at our disposal. ... But with each passing year, and with each whimsical purchase, our libraries become more and more able to articulate who we are, whether we read the books or not.

In other words, its one of those books you thrust on your partner with an incredulous cry of This is me!

I dont want anyone writing in to point out that I spend too much money on books, many of which I will never read. I know that already. I certainly intend to read all of them, more or less. My intentions are good. Anyway, its my money. And Ill bet you do it too.

I would like my personal reading map to resemble a map of the British Empire circa 1900.

And what would happen if we never read the classics? There comes a point in life, it seems to me, where you have to decide whether youre a Person of Letters or merely someone who loves books, and Im beginning to see that the book lovers have more fun.

We are never allowed to forget that some books are badly written; we should remember that sometimes theyre badly read, too.

Books are, lets face it, better than everything else. If we played Cultural Fantasy Boxing League, and made books go fifteen rounds in the ring against the best that any other art form had to offer, then books would win pretty much every time.

I’m not the smartest guy in the world, but I’m certainly not the dumbest. I mean, I’ve read books like The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Love in the Time of Cholera, and I think I’ve understood them. They’re about girls, right? Just kidding. But I have to say my all-time favorite book is Johnny Cash’s autobiography Cash by Johnny Cash.