Quotes from David Peace

You are afraid, afraid of your dreams, your dreams which were once your friends, your best friends, are now your enemies, your worst enemies.

My father used to say, 'If you want to know the artist, look at the art'. He was usually talking about Stanley Matthews or Don Bradman when he said it.

The sun comes out but the rain stays put. No rainbows today. Not here.

You wake up and for those few seconds, minutes, you forget; forget you are injured; forget you are finished.

They love me for what I'm not. They hate me for what I am.

Thank fuck!

The things I saw and things I missed- The many, many bloody things I fucking missed- It's just another morning; another morning when I wish I wasn't here.

Wearing your red scarves, your Liverpool scarves. To support Liverpool Football Club. So I thank you, boys. I thank you. For supporting Liverpool Football Club. Because we could do nothing without you, boys – We would be nothing without you.

But there are tears in my eyes and then I can't stop crying, stood there on that practice pitch in the dark, the tears rolling down my bloody cheeks, for once in my fucking life glad that I'm alone.

He once told me, Instead of scoring thirty goals a season, why don't you score twenty-five and help someone else to score fifteen? That way the team's ten goals better off.

Finished off and washed up before your time- But you will never run a pub. You will never own a shop- Instead, you will have your revenge- That is how you shall live- In place of a life, revenge.

And I didn't think you believed in god or a heaven.' 'Having been here thirty-four days,' I tell him, 'I've changed my mind, Sydney.' 'Why's that then?' he smiles. 'Well, if there's a hell like this place, then there has to be heaven somewhere.

Leeds United had won but I didn't care. I had lost.

It was raining so hard now that the whole city looked underwater. I wished to Christ it was, that the rain would drown the people and wash the place the fuck away.

I sat down on the arm of my father's empty chair, thinking of sea-view flats in Brighton, of southern girls called Anna or Sophie, and of a misplaced sense of filial duty now half redundant.

You get nothing for coming second, son. Because if you are second, you are nothing. You are nowhere – First is first. Second is nowhere.

I've seen it before. Been here before. Played or managed here, six or seven times in six or seven years. Always a visitor, always away.

You've had enough of failure. Doubts. Had enough of disappointment.

And I am still haunted by all the things I could have been.

Uncle Eric holding court, proud the only time he ever left Yorkshire was to kill Germans.

I was miles and years away and then suddenly aware my hour was at hand, feeling all their eyes on me.

Somewhere back on the moors, the visibility down to yards, I'd made that deal again. I catch him, stop him murdering mothers, orphaning children, then you give us one, just one.

There are stains on their knees, stains on their arses. Dirty Leeds.

What this game is all about. Teams. The balance and the combination. Not the individual, not the superstar. Because this is a team game, a team sport, is it not, Don? Is it not? It's about how you play as a team. Not as an individual. With a good game here and a good game there. It's about the team. Week in, week out. Game after game, match after match. How the team plays.