Quotes from David Nicholls

Maybe if you listen to Radio 4 enough from an early age, you just get educated subliminally

I'd always been under the impression that we were together because we wanted to be together, and because we were happy most of the time. I'd thought that we loved each other. I'd thought … clearly I was mistaken, but I was looking forward to us growing old together. Me and you, growing old and dying together.' Connie turned to me, her head on the pillow, and said, 'Douglas, why would anyone in their right mind look forward to that?

And is that what love looks like - all wet mouth sand your skirt rucked up?

Conversation, the gradual unveiling of oneself, one's quirks and characteristics, opinions and beliefs; what a fraught and awkward business that is.

An amusing story? She jabs the call button as if poking an eye. She doesn't want an amusing story, she wants change, a break, not anecdotes. Her life has been stuffed with anecdotes, an endless string of the bastards, now she wants something to right for once. She wants success, or at least the hope of it.

O segredo(...)é ser corajosa e arrojada e fazer alguma diferença. Não exatamente mudar o mundo, só aquela parte à tua volta.

Apparently the nation's future lay not in innovation and development but in global finance and telesales, in the entertainment industry and coffee shops.

I get this occasionally, the need to define myself as a something-or-other, and at various times in my life I have wondered if I´m a Goth, a homosexual, a Jew, a Catholic or a manic-depressive, wheter I am adopted, or have a hole in my heart, or possess the ability to move objects with the power of my mind, and have always, mostly regretfully, come to conclusion that I´m none of the above. The fact is I´m actually not ANYTHING.

Cherish your friends, stay true to your principles, live passionately, fully and well. Experience new things. Love and be loved, if you ever get the chance.

in real life, souls don't meet, they just wander about

You're 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 girl of confidence. Either that or a scented candle.

Their lips touched now, mouths pursed tight, their eyes open, both of them stock still. The moment held, a kind of such glorious confusion.

But like my dad used to say, the crucial thing about an education is the opportunity that it brings, the doors it opens, because otherwise knowledge, in and of itself, is a blind alley, especially from where I'm sitting.

Okay, well I think the programme is like being screamed at for an hour by a drunk with a strobe-light, but like I said--

I considered the concept of "oversharing", and what undersharing might be, and whether it was ever possible to settle on something in between.

The tourist's paradox: how to find somewhere that's free of people exactly like us.

And there it is again, the look. There's no doubt about it, if Sylvie had a receipt, she would have taken him back by now; this one's gone wrong. It's not what I wanted.

In fact he was rather boring on the subject, but I kept quiet and took comfort in that old saying about fallen apples and their distance from trees.

Él puso suavemente una mano en la nuca, a la vez que ella le ponía suavemente la suya en la cadera, y se dieron un beso en la calle, rodeados de gente con prisa por volver a casa, en la luz de verano; y sería, para ambos, el beso más dulce de su vida. Aquí empieza todo. Empieza todo aquí, hoy.

What was the point of being successful in private?

She was always going to be the smartest, kindest, funniest, loyalest person we would ever meet, and the fact of her not being here well it just isn't right

Okay then, smile and...

And then some days you wake up and everything is perfect.

And then it was over