Quotes from David Nicholls

There seemed no reason why she shouldn't try writing something in between, but she was discovering once again that reading and writing were not the same - you couldn't just soak it up and then squeeze it out again.

The trick of it, she told herself, is to be courageous and bold and make a difference. Not change the world exactly, just the bit around you. Go out there with your double-first, your passion and your new Smith Corona electric typewriter and work hard at … something.

but i hate this date, and will always hate this day every year fromnow on whenever it comes around

You can't see it at the moment, 'cause all these things have just gone wrong, and you're nervous and angry about things you can't control and which aren't your fault. But if you … hang on, Charlie. I don't know. I just think there's something inside you and I love it...

You're gorgeous, you old hag. If I would give you anything in this world it would be this. Confidence. Either that or a scented candle.

Bye, Em.' 'Bye, Dex.' 'Goodbye.' 'Goodbye. Goodbye

Where can we live but days?

Ah, solving that question Brings the priest and the doctor In their

grief is as much about regret for what you've never had as sadness for what you've lost.

but I've been here in Wolverhampton for two days now and that's felt pretty eternal (though I can reveal that the Pizza Hut

That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But, it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it and think how different its course would have been. Pause, you who read this, and think for a long moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on that memorable day.

she might even enjoy it. The few times that she'd gone to bed with boys she had always ended up giggling or weeping and it might be nice to try for something in between. She wondered if

The great virtue of defeat, once accepted, is that it at least allows one to rest.

What she really needed he thought, ablaze with compassion, was someone to take her in hand and unlock her potential.

fictional character, this seemed to

It has been fun and harrowing.

Absurdly, I punched it because nothing hurts a jellyfish more, nothing affronts their sense of dignity, than an underwater punch in the face.

Clearly she had been forgiven, but they had also settled into the maddening familiarity of friendship; maddening for her at least, lying on the fresh spring grass, their hands almost touching as he told her about Lola, this incredible Spanish girl he'd met while skiing in the Pyrenees.

Wasn't this exactly one of the experiences she craved? Why couldn't she be more spontaneous and reckless?

That line again. For Ian, a joke was not a single-use item but something you brought out again and again until it fell apart in your hands like a cheap umbrella.

Clearly the key to having a long and successful marriage would be to have a non-lethal heart attack every three months or so

Somewhere out there lay Düsseldorf, Dortmund, Wuppertal and Cologne, the German industrial heartland, the mighty Rhine, but all I could see were the lights on the Autobahn.

Both of our memories were deteriorating, and in recent years the effort required to recall a name or incident felt almost wearyingly physical, like clearing out an attic.

just to gloat at mum and dad's golden girl brought low. But