Quotes from Nick Hornby

Mi genio, si se puede decir así, consiste en combinar un montón de cualidades medias en una representación compacta.

1) Fate a meno di scrivermi che spendo troppi soldi per libri che in gran parte non leggerò mai. Questo lo so già. Perché comunque ho intenzione di leggerli…più o meno. Le mie intenzioni sono buone. In ogni caso, i soldi sono miei. E poi scommetto che fate anche voi come me.

Dan and Steve. I've know them for years. They're a bit dull, I'm afraid, but I have to see them sometimes. Duck noires, right? Sorry? I call 'em duck noires. Sort of a mixture of lame duck and bête noire. People you don't want to see but kinda feel you should.

How can it be bollocks to state a preference?" I ask. "If it's the wrong preference, it's bollocks.

Minneapolis, it turned out, was on the Mississippi—who knew, apart from Americans, and just about anyone else who'd paid attention in geography lessons?—so Annie ended up ticking off something else she'd never expected to see, although here at the less romantic end it looked disappointingly like the Thames.

There's not much you can decipher in their faces, really. There's not much that sets them apart from single people; try dividing people you walk past into one of life's four categories - happily coupled, unhappily coupled, single, and desperate - and you'll find you won't be able to do it. Or rather, you could do it, but you would have no confidence in your choices. This seems incredible to me. The most important thing in life, and you can't tell whether people have it or not.

Ä°ÅŸte ben böyle hissediyorum kendimi, hem de her gün. Ama kimse beni dinlemek, anlamak istemiyor. Kendimi iyi, neÅŸeli hissetmeliyim onlara göre. Her gün Tom Jones dinlemeliyim mesela, ya da ÅŸu dizide oynayan Avusturalyal? k?z?. Ama ne yapay?m, ben böyle hissediyorum kendimi iÅŸte. Radyoda ruh halime uygun ÅŸeyler çalm?yorlar tabii. Kederliysen toplumun d???nda kal?yorsun.

Non ci dimentichiamo mai che alcuni libri sono scritti male; però dovremmo ricordarci che a volte sono anche letti male.

She wished she didn't spend so much time worrying about the end of it all, but she couldn't help it. Being at the top of your career was like being at the top of a Ferris wheel: you knew that you had to keep moving, and you knew which way you were going. You had no choice.

The crowd has gone mad and they have every right to do so,' Barry Davies pronounced memorably on Match of the Day that night; those were the days, when TV commentators actively encouraged riots rather than argued pompously for the return of National Service.

Sapete com'è quando si hanno dei figli. Di loro si pensa il peggio solo quando non c'è scelta.

It was April, so the referendum was still weeks away. He was probably going to vote to leave, like his dad, but he couldn't see that it would make much difference to his life one way or the other. There'd still be meat, leisure centres, kids, football.

Berdua saja tidaklah cukup, itu adalah masalahnya. Ia selalu berpikir bahwa dua adalah angka yang tepat, dan ia benci untuk hidup dalam keluarga berjumlah tiga, empat, atau lima. Tapi, sekarang ia bisa melihat alasan dibalik hal itu: Jika seseorang menghilang, maka kau tidak akan tinggal sendiri.

Anyone who thinks text messages are funny isn't going to kill himself. There isn't enough going on internally.

It was strange, however, failing to belong even at a party full of outsiders.

You can wait forever for the muse to sit on your shoulder, but most of the time you know what has to be done.

Bagaimana kau bisa membuat sebuah keluarga jika tak ada seorang pun berada disisimu, kau tahu, untuk membantumu?

Ma mentre trovavo loro una casa nella sezione "saggistica d'arte e letteratura" (personalmente trovo che agli scopi domestici il sistema di archiviazione Trivial Pursuit funzioni meglio del Dewey), d'un tratto ho avuto una piccola epifania: tutti i libri che possediamo, letti e no, sono l'espressione più piena che abbiamo a disposizione della nostra personalità.

Ecco che senso ha stare insieme. Tu hai un certo potenziale. E io sono qui per farlo emergere.»

He'd told her it was just a scratch and got cross when she hadn't offered morphine.

Quando sei infelice, secondo me, tutto nel mondo - leggere, mangiare, dormire - ha chiuso dentro qualcosa, da qualche parte, che serve a renderti ancora più infelice

The artistic temperament is particularly unhelpful if it is just that, with no end product. (I

Lucy se dio cuenta de que ninguno de los dos había dicho la frase «Te quiero», y sin embargo cada uno había encontrado el modo de decirle al otro que lo quería. Parecía un buen modo de terminar.

She understood Paul from the inside out, two kids, nine or ten parents' evenings, eleven or twelve Christmases, eight or nine holidays in France, five seasons of The Wire, however many hundred fucks and takeaways. (Could it be thousands? Four figures if you added the fucks and the takeaways together, probably, although there was no earthly reason why you would.)