Nick Hornby Quotes About Books

Quotes about: Books

Age Art Books Children Emotions Failing Feelings

All the books we own, both read and unread, are the fullest expression of self we have at our disposal. ... But with each passing year, and with each whimsical purchase, our libraries become more and more able to articulate who we are, whether we read the books or not.

Nick Hornby

Book, Self, Expression

Nick Hornby (2004). “The Polysyllabic Spree”, McSweeneys Books
I suddenly had a little epiphany: all the books we own, both read and unread, are the fullest expression of self we have at our disposal.

Nick Hornby

Book, Self, Expression

Nick Hornby (2004). “The Polysyllabic Spree”, McSweeneys Books
Hard is trying to rebuild yourself, piece by piece, with no instruction book, and no clue as to where all the important bits are supposed to go.

Nick Hornby

Book, Important, Trying
Books are, let's face it, better than everything else.

Nick Hornby

Book, Faces

Nick Hornby (2004). “The Polysyllabic Spree”, McSweeneys Books
Being a reader is sort of like being president, except reading involves fewer state dinners, usually. You have this agenda you want to get through, but you get distracted by life events, e.g., books arriving in the mail/World War III, and you are temporarily deflected from your chosen path.

Nick Hornby

War, Book, Reading

Nick Hornby (2004). “The Polysyllabic Spree”, McSweeneys Books
I don't want anyone writing in to point out that I spend too much money on books, many of which I will never read. I know that already. I certainly intend to read all of them, more or less. My intentions are good. Anyway, it's my money. And I'll bet you do it too.

Nick Hornby

Book, Writing, Want

Nick Hornby (2004). “The Polysyllabic Spree”, McSweeneys Books
Sequels are very rarely a good idea, and in any case, the success of the book changed my relationship with the club in some ways.

Nick Hornby

Book, Ideas, Clubs
Maybe the best thing to do with favorite books is to leave them be: to achieve such exalted position means that they entered your life at exactly the right time, in precisely the right place, and those conditions can never be recreated.

Nick Hornby

Book, Mean, Achieve

Nick Hornby (2008). “Shakespeare Wrote for Money”, McSweeneys Books
I have always been accused of taking the things I love - football, of course, but also books and records - much too seriously, and I do feel a kind of anger when I hear a bad record, or when someone is lukewarm about a book that means a lot to me.

Nick Hornby

Football, Book, Mean
That is another chamber of my heart that shows no electrical activity - the chamber that used to flicker into life when I saw a film that moved me, or read a book that inspired me, or listened to music that made me want to cry. I closed that chamber myself, for all the usual reasons. And now I seem to have made a pact with some philistine devil: if I don't attempt to re-open it, I will be allowed just enough energy and optimism to get through a working day without wanting to hang myself.

Nick Hornby

Book, Heart, Optimism
In other words, it's one of those books you thrust on your partner with an incredulous cry of "This is me!

Nick Hornby

Book, Cry, Partners

Nick Hornby (2004). “The Polysyllabic Spree”, McSweeneys Books
And what would happen if we never read the classics? There comes a point in life, it seems to me, where you have to decide whether you're a Person of Letters or merely someone who loves books, and I'm beginning to see that the book lovers have more fun.

Nick Hornby

Fun, Book, Letters

"Stuff I’ve Been Reading". www.believermag.com. October 2005.
Books are, let's face it, better than everything else. If we played Cultural Fantasy Boxing League, and made books go fifteen rounds in the ring against the best that any other art form had to offer, then books would win pretty much every time.

Nick Hornby

Inspirational, Motivational, Art

Nick Hornby (2004). “The Polysyllabic Spree”, McSweeneys Books
You're not allowed to say anything about books because they're books, and books are, you know, God.

Nick Hornby

Book, Say Anything, Knowing God

"A Long Way Down (Movie Tie-In)". Book by Nick Hornby, June 7, 2005.
I’m not the smartest guy in the world, but I’m certainly not the dumbest. I mean, I’ve read books like "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" and "Love in the Time of Cholera", and I think I’ve understood them. They’re about girls, right? Just kidding. But I have to say my all-time favorite book is Johnny Cash’s autobiography "Cash" by Johnny Cash.

Nick Hornby

Girl, Book, Mean

"High Fidelity". www.imdb.com. 2000.
All I know is that you can get very little from a book that is making you weep with the effort of reading it. You won’t remember it, and you’ll learn nothing from it, and you’ll be less likely to choose a book over Big Brother next time you have a choice.

Nick Hornby

Brother, Book, Reading

Nick Hornby (2006). “Housekeeping Vs. the Dirt”, McSweeneys Books
(about organizing books in his home library, and putting a book in the "Arts and Lit non-fiction section) I personally find that for domestic purposes, the Trivial Pursuit system works better than Dewey.

Nick Hornby

Art, Book, Home
Several months later, and I have finally read one of the three (books), even though I wanted to read all three of them immediately. What happened in between? Other books, is what happened. Other books, other moods, other obligations, other appetites, other reading journeys.

Nick Hornby

Book, Reading, Journey

Nick Hornby (2012). “More Baths Less Talking: Notes from the Reading Life of a Celebrated Author Locked in Battle with Football, Family, and Time Itself”, p.82, McSweeney's
So this is supposed to be about the how, and when, and why, and what of reading -- about the way that, when reading is going well, one book leads to another and to another, a paper trail of theme and meaning; and how, when it's going badly, when books don't stick or take, when your mood and the mood of the book are fighting like cats, you'd rather do anything but attempt the next paragraph, or reread the last one for the tenth time.

Nick Hornby

Book, Reading, Cat

Nick Hornby (2006). “The complete polysyllabic spree”
We are never allowed to forget that some books are badly written; we should remember that sometimes they're badly read, too.

Nick Hornby

Book, Remember, Sometimes

Nick Hornby (2004). “The Polysyllabic Spree”, McSweeneys Books
No time spent with a book is ever entirely wasted, even if the experience is not a happy one: there’s always something to be learned. It’s just that, every now and again, you can hit a patch of reading that makes you feel as if you’re pootling about. [...] But what can you do about it? We don’t choose to waste our reading time; it just happens. The books let us down.

Nick Hornby

Book, Reading, Waste

"Stuff I've been reading". www.believermag.com. July/August 2011.
Like all books that have that kind of momentum, it starts from word of mouth.

Nick Hornby

Book, Momentum, Mouths
I have always been accused of taking the things I love – football, of course, but also books and records – much too seriously, and I do feel a kind of anger when I hear a bad record, or when someone is lukewarm about a book that means a lot to me. Perhaps it was these desperate, bitter men in the West Stand at Arsenal who taught me how to get angry in this way; and perhaps it is why I earn some of my living as a critic – maybe it’s those voices I can hear when I write. ‘You’re a WANKER, X.’ ‘The Booker Prize? THE BOOKER PRIZE? They should give that to me for having to read you.

Nick Hornby

Football, Book, Writing
I don't want my books to exclude anyone, but if they have to, then I would rather they excluded the people who feel they are too smart for them!

Nick Hornby

Smart, Book, People
I see now that dismissing YA books because you're not a young adult is a little bit like refusing to watch thrillers on the grounds that you're not a policeman or a dangerous criminal, and as a consequence, I've discovered a previously ignored room at the back of the bookstore that's filled with masterpieces I've never heard of.

Nick Hornby

Book, Adults, Criminals

Nick Hornby (2008). “Shakespeare Wrote for Money”, McSweeneys Books

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Born: April 17, 1957
Occupation: Novelist
Cite this Page: Citation

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