David Nicholls Quotes - Page 4

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Find the thing you love, and do it with all your heart, to the absolute best of your ability, no matter what people say.

David Nicholls

Heart, People, Matter

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I've only ever been recognised in the street once. In Sweden, strangely.

David Nicholls

Sweden, Streets

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Emma was a shocking driver, simultaneously sloppy and petrified, and for the first fifty miles had been absent-mindedly driving with her spectacles on top of her contact lenses so that other traffic loomed menacingly out of nowhere like alien space cruisers.

David Nicholls

Space, Lenses, Fifty

David Nicholls (2009). “One Day”, p.236, Hachette UK

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As the possibility of a relationship had faded, Emma had endeavored to harden herself to Dexter's indifference and these days a remark like this caused no more pain than, say, a tennis ball thrown sharply at the back of her head.

David Nicholls

Pain, Tennis, Balls

David Nicholls (2009). “One Day”, p.60, Hachette UK

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Sorry' he said. 'No, I'm sorry.' 'What are you sorry for?' 'Rattling on like a mad old cow. I'm sorry, I'm tired, bad day, and I'm sorry for being so...boring.' 'You're not that boring.' 'I am, Dex. God, I swear I bore myself.' 'Well, you don't bore me.' He took her hand in his. 'You could never bore me. You're one in a million, Em.

David Nicholls

Sorry, Tired, Bad Day

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No matter how predictable, banal and listless the rest of my life might be, you can guarantee that there'll always be something interesting going on with my skin.

David Nicholls

Guarantees That, Interesting, Skins

David Nicholls (2008). “Starter for Ten: A Novel”, p.136, Villard

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Maybe I've just read too many novels. In novels, alcoholics are always attractive and fuuny and charming and complex, like Sebastian Flyte or ABe North in Tender in the Night, and they're drinking because of a deep, unquenchable sadness of the soul, or the terrible legacy of the First World War, whereas I just get drunk because I'm thirsty, and I like the taste of lager.

David Nicholls

War, Drinking, Sadness

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Oh you know me. I have no emotions. I'm a robot. Or a nun. A robot nun.

David Nicholls

Robots, Emotion, Nun

David Nicholls (2009). “One Day”, p.63, Hachette UK

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As new dawns go, this one is depressingly like the old dawn.

David Nicholls

Dawn

David Nicholls (2004). “A Question of Attraction: A Novel”, p.55, Villard

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I can't believe it's actually happening. This is independent adulthood, this is what it feels like. Shouldn't there be some sort of ritual? In certain remote African tribes there'd be some incredible four day rites of passage ceremony involving tattooing and potent hallucinogenic drugs extracted from tree-frogs, and village elders smearing my body with monkey blood, but here,rites of passage is all about three new pairs of pants and stuffing your duvet in a bin-liner.

David Nicholls

Believe, Independent, African Tribes

David Nicholls (2004). “A Question of Attraction: A Novel”, p.25, Villard

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So must people hate their jobs.That's why they're called it jobs

David Nicholls

Jobs, Hate, People

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All young people worry about things, it's a natural and inevitable part of growing up, and at the age of sixteen my greatest anxiety in life was that I'd never again achieve anything as good, or pure, or noble, or true, as my O-level results.

David Nicholls

Growing Up, People, Worry

David Nicholls (2004). “A Question of Attraction: A Novel”, p.8, Villard

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As soon as she'd met him at the arrivals gate on his return from Thailand, lithe and brown and shaven-headed, she knew that there was no chance of a relationship between them. Too much had happened to him, too little had happened to her.

David Nicholls

Thailand, Littles, Too Much

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She was reaching the limits of how much its possible to change a man

David Nicholls

Men, Limits, Reaching

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And it was at moments like this that she had to remind herself that she was in love with him, or had once been in love with him, a long time ago.

David Nicholls

Long, Moments, Been In Love

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Sometimes I wish that I hadn't learned how to crochet," I say, and Alice laughs. Obviously she thinks I'm joking, which is maybe for the best.

David Nicholls

Thinking, Laughing, Wish

David Nicholls (2008). “Starter for Ten: A Novel”, p.91, Villard

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These days grief seems like walking on a frozen river; most of the time he feels safe enough, but there is always that danger that he will plunge through.

David Nicholls

Grief, Rivers, Frozen

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Salmon. Salmon, salmon, salmon, salmon. I eat so much salmon at these weddings, twice a year I get this urge to swim upstream.

David Nicholls

Years, Swim, Salmon

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I worry sometimes that I'm a bit moralistic; always writing about men who are learning to grow up, not be so self-absorbed, selfish or badly behaved. I wonder if that's dull and liberal and wimpy? I should probably write something that celebrates wickedness.

David Nicholls

Growing Up, Selfish, Writing

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I had made this mistake once before, on a school trip to the Victoria and Albert Museum, when I followed a sign marked WOMEN, thinking it was an exhibition on the changing roles of women in society, and actually ended up standing in the ladies' toilets.

David Nicholls

Mistake, School, Thinking

David Nicholls (2008). “Starter for Ten: A Novel”, p.42, Villard

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If she does have a failing, and it's obviously only a tiny one, it's that she doesn't seem particularly curious about other people, or me, anyway.

David Nicholls

People, Doe, Tiny

David Nicholls (2008). “Starter for Ten: A Novel”, p.60, Villard

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I love him, she thought. I'm just not in love with him and also I don't love him. I've tried, I've strained to love him but I can't. I am building a life with a man I don't love, and I don't know what to do about it.

David Nicholls

I Love Him, Men, Building

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I think reality is over-rated

David Nicholls

Reality, Thinking

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She had never been a proficient flirt. Her spasms of kittenish behaviour were graceless and inept, like normal conversation on roller skates. but the combination of the retsina and sun made Emma feel sentimental and light-headed. She reached for her roller skates.

David Nicholls

Flirting, Light, Sun

David Nicholls (2009). “One Day”, p.85, Hachette UK

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but they had also settled into the maddening familiarity of friendship; maddening for her at least.

David Nicholls

Familiarity

David Nicholls (2009). “One Day”, p.23, Hachette UK

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Born: November 30, 1966
Occupation: Novelist
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