Quotes by Nick Hornby

All my life I wanted to go to bed with an American, and now I had, and Im beginning to see why people dont do it more often.

The difference between sex with David and sex with Stephen is like the difference between science and art. With Stephen its all empathy and imagination and exploration and the shock of the new, and the outcome is... uncertain, if you know what I mean. Im engaged by it, but I, mot necessarily sure what its all about. David, on the other hand, presses this button, then that one, and bingo! Its like operating a lift - just as romantic, but actually just as useful.

I would never attempt to dissuade anyone from reading a book. But please, if youre reading something thats killing you, put it down and read something else, just as you would reach for the remote if you werent enjoying a TV program...All I know is that you can get very little from a book that is making you weep with the effort of reading it. You wont remember it, and youll be less likely to choose a book over [insert popular contemporary TV program] next time you have a choice.

Ive committed to nothing...and thats just suicide...by tiny, tiny increments.

Clockers asks--almost in passing, and theres a lot more to it than this--a pretty interesting question: if you choose to work for the minimum wage when everyone around you is pocketing thousands from drug deals, then what does that do to you, to your head and to your heart? (Hornbys thoughts after reading Clockers by Richard Price)

(from his random observations after reading David Copperfield by Charles Dickens)In the Old Curiosity Shop I discovered that in the character of Dick Swiveller, Dickens provided P.G. Wodehouse with pretty much the whole of his oeuvre. In David Copperfield, Davids bosses Spenlow and Jorkins are what must be the earliest fictional representations of good cop/bad cop.

Experience, then, was something that enabled you to do nothing with a clear conscience. Experience was an overrated quality.

She regretted the explanation immediately, but that was because she always regretted everything

Youre fucked. You thought you were going to be someone, but now its obvious youre nobody. You havent got as much talent as you thought you had, and there was no Plan B, and you got no skills and no education, and now youre looking at forty or fifty years of nothing. Less than nothing, probably. Thats pretty heavy. Thats worse than having the brain thing, because what you got now will take a lot longer to kill you. Youve got the choice of a slow, painful death, or a quick, merciful one.

Its brilliant, being depressed; you can behave as badly as you like.

And another way of explaining it is to say that shit happens, and theres no space too small, too dark and airless and fucking hopeless, for people to crawl into.

That’s why; he’s worried about how his life is turning out, and he’s lonely, and lonely people are the bitterest of them all.

What came first, the music or the misery? Did I listen to music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to music? Do all those records turn you into a melancholy person?People worry about kids playing with guns, and teenagers watching violent videos; we are scared that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands - literally thousands - of songs about broken hearts and pain and misery and loss. The unhappiest people I know, romantically speaking, are the ones who like pop music the most; and I dont know whether pop music has caused this unhappiness, but I do know that theyve been listening to the sad songs longer than theyve been living the unhappy lives.

I’m still pretty sick about what I’ve lost, but I only admit it to myself late at night, which is probably why I’m not the best sleeper.

All that night he thought like boomerangs fly: an idea would shoot way off into the distance, all the way to a caravan in Hollywood and, for a moment, when he had got as far away from school and reality as it was possible to go, he was reasonably happy; then it would begin the return journey, thump him on the head, and leave him in exactly the place he had started from. And all the time it got nearer and nearer to the morning.

Reciprocation was a pretty powerful stimulant to the imagination.

That’s why; he’s worried about how his life is turning out, and he’s lonely, and lonely people are the bitterest of them all

[about suicide] And why is it the biggest sin of all? All your life youre told that youll be going to this marvellous place when you pass on. And the one thing you can do to get you there a bit quicker is something that stops you getting there at all. Oh, I can see that its a kind of queue­jumping. But if someone jumps the queue at the Post Office, people tut. Or sometimes they say, “Excuse me, I was here first.” They dont say, “You will be consumed by hellfire for all eternity.” That would be a bit strong.

Knowing that you want to die makes you less scared.

I could feel the weight of everything then --- the weight of loneliness, of everything that had gone wrong. I felt heroic, going up those last few flights to the top of the building, dragging that weight along with me. Jumping felt like the only way to get rid of it, the only way to make it work for me instead of against me; I felt so heavy that I knew Id hit the street in no time. Id beat the world record for falling off a tower block.