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My 20s Was A Sea Of Worry. I Worried About Benefit Forms, About Being Thrown Out Of My Flat. I Never Went On Holiday Because I Thought: 'what If An Audition Comes Up?' I Was A Nervous Wreck.

-David Nicholls

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My 20s Was A

David Nicholls

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My 20s Was A Sea Of Worry. I Worried About Benefit Forms, About Being Thrown Out Of My Flat. I Never Went On Holiday Because I Thought: 'what If An Audition Comes Up?' I Was A Nervous Wreck.

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But At The Best Of Times She Feels Like A Character In A Muriel Spark Novel — Independent, Bookish, Sharp-minded, Secretly Romantic.

In Eight Years Not A Day Has Gone By When She Hasn’t Thought Of Him. She Misses Him And She Wants Him Back. I Want My Best Friend Back, She Thinks, Because Without Him Nothing Is Good And Nothing Is Right.

Their Friendship Was Like A Wilted Bunch Of Flowers That She Insisted On Topping Up With Water. Why Not Let It Die Instead?

I Think I Became A Writer Because I Used To Write Letters To My Friends, And I Used To Love Writing Them. I Loved The Idea That You Can Put Marks On A Page And Send It Off, And Two Days Later, Someone Laughs Somewhere Else In The World.

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.

I Contemplate The Idea That Maybe I'm An Alcoholic. I Get This Occassionally, The Need To Define Myself As Something-or-the-other, And At Various Times In My Life Have Wondered If I'm A Goth, A Homosexul, A Jew, A Catholic Or A Manic Depressive, Whether 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, Most Regretfully, Come To The Conclusion That I'm None Of The Above. The Fact Is I'm Actually Not Anything.

…she Was Discovering Once Again That Reading And Writing Were Not The Same — You Couldn't Just Soak It Up Then Squeeze It Out Again.

Reading And Writing

I Applied For The University Of Life. Didn't Get The Grades.

All His Words And Actions Would Now Be Fit For His Daughter’s Ears And Eyes. Life Would Be Lived As If Under [her] Constant Scrutiny. He Would Never Do Anything That Might Cause Her Pain Or Anxiety Or Embarrassment And There Would Be Nothing, Absolutely Nothing In His Life To Be Ashamed Of Anymore.

For The Best Part Of My Childhood I Visited The Local Library Three Or Four Times A Week, Hunching In The Stacks On A Foam Rubber Stool And Devouring Children's Fiction, Classics, Salacious Thrillers, Horror And Sci-fi, Books About Cinema And Origami And Natural History, To The Point Where My Parents Encouraged Me To Read A Little Less.

And Then Some Days You Wake Up And Everything's Perfect

I Think Probably I'm Quite Sentimental; I Like Big Emotional Stories, I Like Being Moved By Things, But I Think I'm Very Embarrassed By Sentiment. I'm Very Embarrassed By Corniness.

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.

But How Can You Not Like Music? That's The Same As Not Liking Food! Or Sex!

I Love That Sound,' He Mumbled Into Her Hair. 'blackbirds At Dawn.' 'i Hate It. Makes Me Think I've Done Something I'll Regret.

And You Stupid, Stupid Woman, Stupid For Caring, Stupid For Thinking That He Cared.

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.

I Think You Actually Get A Kick Out Of Being Disappointed And Under-achieving, Because It's Easier, Isn't It? Failure And Unhappiness Is Easier Because You Can Make A Joke Out Of It.

She Wondered If She Was Doomed To Be One Of Those People Who Spend Their Lives Trying Things.

Find The Thing You Love, And Do It With All Your Heart, To The Absolute Best Of Your Ability, No Matter What People Say.

The Sad Fact Is That I Love Dickens And Donne And Keats And Eliot And Forster And Conrad And Fitzgerald And Kafka And Wilde And Orwell And Waugh And Marvell And Greene And Sterne And Shakespeare And Webster And Swift And Yeats And Joyce And Hardy, Really, Really Love Them. It’s Just That They Don’t Love Me Back.

I Identified With Pip From 'great Expectations,' Especially When I Was Younger; I Had The Same Kind Of Gaucheness And Uncertainty.

Great Expectations

Afterward, There Was Some Debate As To Whether We'd Actually "done It Properly," Which Gives You Some Idea Of The Awesome Skill And Artful Dexterity Of My Lovemaking Technique.

I'm Trying To Be Inspiring! I'm Trying To Lift Your Grubby Soul For The Great Adventure That Lies Ahead Of You!

At University, I Used To Write Silly Little Sketches And Monologues, But Never Fiction.

Once You Decide Not To Worry About That Stuff Anymore, Dating And Relationships And Love And All That, It's Like You're Free To Get On With Real Life.

Read A Book At The Right Age And It Will Stay With You For Life.

And They Did Have Fun, Though It Was Of Different Kind Now. All That Yearning And Passion Had Been Replaced By A Steady Pulse Of Pleasure And Satisfaction And Occasional Irritation, And This Seemed To Be A Happy Exchange; If There Had Been Moments In Her Life When She Had Been More Elated, There Had Never Been A Time When Things Had Been More Constant.

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.

…surprised All Over Again At How Very Comforting Very Bad Food Can Be.

Welcome To The Graveyard Of Ambition.

This Isn't A Letter, It's A Gift.

Mortified At The Speed With Which Intimacy Evaporates.

These Days The Nights And Mornings Have A Tendency To Bleed Into One Another.

Alice Doesn't Seem To Mind Because She's Laughing Too, And Biting Her Lip, All Doe-eyed, And Tossing Her Freshly Washed Hair, And Norton Tosses His Lovely, Glossy Hair Back, And She Tosses Her Hair In Return, And He Tosses His, And She Tosses Hers, And It;s Like Some Mating Ritual On A Wildlife Program.

Fear And Anxiety Are Great Motivators For Me.

In The Future, I'll Be Braver, She Told Herself. In The Future, I Will Always Speak My Mind, Eloquently, Passionately.

I'm Not The Consolation Prize, Dex. I'm Not Something You Resort To. I Happen To Think I'm Worth More Than That.

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.

I Love Billy Wilder, And I Love The Way That His Films Can Be Very Touching And Very Moving And Very Romantic, And At The Same Time There's Always A Little Cynical Undertone, There's Always Something That Undercuts Things.

I Suppose The Important Thing Is To Make Some Sort Of Difference,’ She Siad. ‘you Know, Actually Change Something.’ ‘what, Like “change The World”, You Mean?’ ‘not The Whole Entire World. Just The Little Bit Around You.

When I Was An Actor, I Worked With Lots Of Men Who Had A Bit Of Success Early On, Who Were Very Good Looking, Who Suddenly Made A Bit Of Money And Who Felt No Embarrassment - And Nor Should They Have Done - About Having A Good Time.

If You Have To Keep A Secret It's Because You Shouldn't Be Doing It In The First Place

Well, It's So Hard For Books To Take Off. You Give Years Of Your Life To Something That Probably Won't Happen, So When It Does, It Feels A Little Unjust.

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.

Salmon. Salmon, Salmon, Salmon, Salmon. I Eat So Much Salmon At These Weddings, Twice A Year I Get This Urge To Swim Upstream.

Failure And Unhappiness Is Easier Because You Can Make A Joke Out Of It.

Of Course You Should Study Whatever You Want. The Written Appreciation And Understanding Of Literature, Or Any Kind Of Artistic Endeavour, Is Absolutely Central To A Decent Society. Why D'you Think Books Are The First Things That The Fascists Burn?

He's A Better Person When She's Around, And Isn't That What Friends Are For, To Raise You Up And Keep You At Your Best?

Sometimes, When It Is Going Badly, She Wonders If What She Believes To Be A Love Of The Written Word Is Really Just A Fetish For Stationary.

I Still Find It Absurdly Difficult To Concentrate On A Novel If There's A Phone Or Computer To Hand; I Have Taken To Locking Them Outside The Room Like Noisy Pets.

Letters, Like Compilation Tapes, Were Really Vehicles For Unexpressed Emotions And She Was Clearly Putting Far Too Much Time And Energy Into Them.

I'm Just Not Prepared To Be Treated Like This Anymore.' 'treated Like What?' She Sighed, And It Was A Moment Before She Spoke. 'like You Always Want To Be Somewhere Else, With Someone Else.

Everything Was Fine, And She Had The Rare, New Sensation Of Being Exactly Where She Wanted To Be.

I Usually Write On A Computer - Unless I Get Stuck, At Which Point I Switch To Write By Hand. I Think That's Common Among Writers If They Get Cornered On Something.

You Can't Throw Away Years Of Your Life Because It Makes A Funny Anecdote.

So - Whatever Happened To You?' 'life. Life Happened.

Envy Was Just The Tax You Paid On Success.

...emma Morley Wasn't Such A Paragon Either: Pretentious, Petulant, Lazy, Speechifying, Judgmental. Self-pitying, Self Righteous, Self-important, All The Selfs Except Self-confident, The Quality That She Had Always Needed The Most.

You Start Out Wanting To Change The World Through Language, And End Up Thinking It's Enough To Tell A Few Good Jokes.

She Was Reaching The Limits Of How Much Its Possible To Change A Man

People Change, No Use Getting Sentimental About It. Move On, Find Someone Else.

A Joke Was Not A Single-use Item But Something You Brought Out Again And Again Until It Fell Apart In Your Hand Like A Cheap Umbrella.

He Could Feel Her Laughter Against His Chest, And At That Moment He Thought That There Was No Better Feeling Than Making Emma Morley Laugh.

A Screenplay Is Really An Instruction Manual, And It Can Be Interpreted In Any Number Of Ways. The Casting, The Choice Of Location, The Costumes And Make-up, The Actors' Reading Of A Line Or Emphasis Of A Word, The Choice Of Lens And The Pace Of The Cutting - These Are All Part Of The Translation.

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.

I've Been A Compulsive Reader For As Long As I Can Remember.

What Must That Be Like? To Be Admired Before You’ve Even Said A Word, To Be Desired Two Or Three Hundred Times A Day By People Who Have Absolutely No Idea What You’re Like?

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. Now He Hears The Ice Creak Beneath Him, And So Intense And Panicking Is The Sensation That He Has To Stand For A Moment, Press His Hands To His Face And Catch His Breath.

She Shouldn't Speak Her Thoughts; Nothing Good Ever Came Of Speaking Your Thoughts.

The Attraction Of A Life Devoted To Sensation, Pleasure And Self Would Probably Wear Thin One Day, But There Was Still Plenty Of Time For That Yet.

I Think What It Is Is, If You're In School And You're Not That Bright Or Good-looking Or Popular Or Whatever, And One Day You Say Something And Someone Laughs, Well, You Sort Of Grab Onto It, Don't You? You Think, Well I Run Funny And I've Got This Stupid Big Face And Big Thighs And No-one Fancies Me, But At Least I Can Make People Laugh. And It's Such A Nice Feeling, Making Someone Laugh, That Maybe You Get A Bit Reliant On It. Like, If You;re Not Funny Then You're Not...anything

You Can Live Your Whole Life Not Realizing That What You're Looking For Is Right In Front Of You.

Happyish. Well, Happyish Isn't So Bad.' 'it's The Most We Can Hope For.

She Made You Decent, And In Return You Made Her So Happy

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.

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.

Guarantees That

Don’t Keep Fighting Battles That Are Already Lost.

Fighting Battles

He Put One Hand Lightly On The Back Of Her Neck And Simultaneously She Placed One Hand Lightly On His Hip, And They Kissed In The Street As All Around Them People Hurried Home In The Summer Light, And It Was The Sweetest Kiss That Either Of Them Would Ever Know. This Is Where It All Begins. Everything Starts Here, Today. And Then It Was Over.

Being A Decent Human Being Will Require Effort And Energy.

So Must People Hate Their Jobs.that's Why They're Called It Jobs

But They Had Also Settled Into The Maddening Familiarity Of Friendship; Maddening For Her At Least.

I Read A Lot Of F. Scott Fitzgerald. I Love 'tender Is The Night,' And Its Atmosphere Of Doomed Romance. He Was One Of The Greatest Prose Stylists, With A Wonderfully Clear But Lyrical Quality.

I Would Never Complain About One Day Taking Off But It Made Me Painfully Self-conscious For A Long Time.

I Tell You What It Is. It's...when I Didn't See You, I Thought About You Every Day, I Mean Every Day In Some Way Or Another -" "same Here -" "- Even If It Was Just 'i Wish Dexter Could See This' Or 'where's Dexter Now?' Or 'christ, That Dexter, What An Idiot', You Know What I Mean, And Seeing You Today, Well, I Thought I'd Got You Back - My Best Friend. And Now All This, The Wedding, The Baby - I'm So Happy For You, Dex. But It Feels Like I've Lost You Again.

Most Of The Books And Films I Love Walk A Knife Edge Between Romance And Cynicism, And I Wanted 'one Day' To Stay On That Line. I Wanted It To Be Moving, But Without Being Manipulative.

I Had Always Been Led To Believe That Ageing Was A Slow And Gradual Process, The Creep Of A Glacier. Now I Realise That It Happens In A Rush, Like Snow Falling Off A Roof.

He's Laughing Me Into A Stupor, She Thought. I Could Heckle, I Suppose, I Could Throw A Bread Roll At Him, But He's Eaten Them All. She Glanced At The Other Diners, All Of Them Going Into Their Act, And Thought Is This What It All Boils Down To? Romantic Love, Is This All It Is, A Talent Show? Eat A Meal, Go To Bed, Fall In Love With Me And I Promise You Years And Years Of Top Notch Material Like This?

Falling In Love

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 Gift Of Confidence. Either That Or A Scented Candle

Self Confidence

She Made A Firm Resolution, One Of The Resolutions She Was Making Almost Daily These Days. No More Sleepovers, No More Writing Poetry, No More Wasting Time. Time To Tidy Up Your Life. Time To Start Again.

I Suppose The Important Thing Is To Make Some Sort Of Difference.

Important Things

This Is Me.’" He Handed Her The Precious Scrap Of Paper. ‘call Me Or I’ll Call You, But One Of Us Will Call, Yes? What I Mean Is It’s Not A Competition. You Don’t Lose If You Phone First

Today. This Bright New Day That Awaits Us

Better By Far To Be Good And Courageous And Bold And To Make Difference. Not Change The World Exactly, But The Bit Around You

…and Emma Felt Another Small Portion Of Her Soul Fall Away.

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.

Maybe We've Grown Out Of Each Other.

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.

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.

Dont Run Before You Can Walk

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.

She Used To Pride Herself On Her Refusal To See Two Sides Of An Argument, But Increasingly She Accepts That Issues Are More Ambiguous And Complicated Than She Once Thought.

Who Do You Think You Are, Jane Eyre? Grow Up. Be Sensible. Don't Get Carried Away.

Time To Tidy Up Your Life. Time To Start Again.

Just Kidding' Was Exactly What People Wrote When They Meant Every Word.

She Drinks Pints Of Coffee And Writes Little Observations And Ideas For Stories With Her Best Fountain Pen On The Linen-white Pages Of Expensive Notebooks. Sometimes, When It's Going Badly, She Wonders If What She Believes To Be A Love Of The Written Word Is Really Just A Fetish For Stationery.

This Is Where It All Begins. Everything Starts Here, Today.

As A Matter Of Fact, I Think There Are More Things Important In Life Than "relationships.

I Am Not Up To This. I Am Not Capable. I Thought I Would Be, But I'm Not. Some Part Of Me Is Missing, And I Cannot Do This.

As New Dawns Go, This One Is Depressingly Like The Old Dawn.

Why Can’t You Just Love Me? Why Can’t You Just Be In Love With Me?

It Would Be Inappropiate, Undignified, At 38, To Conduct Friendships Or Love Affairs With The Ardour Or Intensity Of A 22 Year Old. Falling In Love Like That? Writing Poetry? Crying At Pop Songs? Dragging People Into Photobooths? Taking A Whole Day To Make A Compilation Tape? Asking People If They Wanted To Share Your Bed, Just For Company? If You Quoted Bob Dylan Or Ts Eliot Or, God Forbid, Brecht At Someone These Days They Would Smile Politely And Step Quietly Backwards, And Who Would Blame Them? Ridiculous, At 38, To Expect A Song Or Book Or Film To Change Your Life.

Falling In Love

Were Helping Build Capability And Capacity In The New Iraqi Navy

Call Me Sentimental, But There's No-one In The World That I'd Like To See Get Dysentery More Than You

There's No Shortage Of Orphans In 19th-century Literature, But It's Hard To Find A Single Happy, Communicative, Functional Parental Relationship In The Whole Of 'great Expectations,' Even Among The Minor Characters.

Widows And Orphans

He's Wearing His Official University Sweatshirt Again, Which Puzzles Me A Little. I Mean I'd Sort Of Understand It More If It Said Yale Or Harvard Or Something, Because Then It Would Be A Fashion Choice. But Why Advertise The Fact That You're At A University To All The Other People Who Are At The University With You?

He Has Found Himself More And More Reliant On Her At Exactly The Point That She Has Become Less Available To Him.

She Realises That If She Is To Save The Show She Is Going To Have To Improvise A Rousing Speech, One Of The Many Henry V Moments That Make Up Her Working Life.

For His Thirtieth Birthday He Had Filled A Whole Night-club Off Regent Street; People Had Been Queuing On The Pavement To Get In. The Sim Card Of His Mobile Phone In His Pocket Was Overflowing With Telephone Numbers Of All The Hundreds Of People He Had Met In The Last Ten Years, And Yet The Only Person He Had Ever Wanted To Talk To In All That Time Was Standing Now In The Very Next Room.

She Glanced Across To Where Tilly And Her Brand New Husband Were Posing For Photographs, Tilly Fluttering A Fan Coquettishly In Front Of Her Face. 'unfortunately I Didn't Realise There Was A French Revolutionary Theme.' 'the Marie-antoinette Thing?' Said Dexter. 'well At Least We Know There'll Be Cake.

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.

Cuddling Was For Great Aunts And Teddy Bears. Cuddling Gave Him Cramp.

He Wanted To Live Life In Such A Way That If A Photograph Were Taken At Random, It Would Be A Cool Photograph.

And Of Course There Is Always Joy In Witnessing The Joy Of Others

Be Nice Wont You?" "i Am Nice, I'm Always Nice." "but Not Too Nice. I Mean Don't Make A Religion Out Of It, Niceness.

You Must Do What You Enjoy.

This Might Sound Really Foolish, But When I Came To Edinburgh In 1988 I Had Spent Nearly All My Life Living South Of Bristol, And I Was Just Amazed That A City Like Edinburgh Was Actually In The British Isles.

Be Good. Do Something Good.

Cherish Your Friends, Stay True To Your Principles, Live Passionately And Fully And Well. Experience New Things. Love And Be Loved, If You Ever Get The Chance

New Years Resolution

She Had Reached A Turning Point. She No Longer Believed That A Situation Could Be Made Better By Writing A Poem About It.

The Early Days Of Any Relationship Are Punctuated With A Series Of Firsts - First Sight, First Words, First Laugh, First Kiss, First Nudity, Etc., With These Shared Landmarks Becoming More Widely Spaced And Innocuous As Days Turn To Years, Until Eventually You're Left With First Visit To A National Trust Property Or Some Such.

And Then She Frowned, And Shook Her Head, Then Put Her Arms Around Him Once More, Pressing Her Face Into His Shoulder, Making A Noise That Sounded Almost Like Rage. 'what's Up?' He Asked. 'nothing. Oh, Nothing. Just...' She Looked Up At Him. 'i Thought I'd Finally Got Rid Of You.' 'i Don't Think You Can.' He Said

...and Once Again Dexter Is Struck By How Easy Conversation Can Be When No-one Is In Their Right Mind

Dexter, I Love You So Much. So, So Much, And I Probably Always Will. I Just Don't Like You Anymore. I'm Sorry.

We're Not Ourselves, Are We? I'm Certainly Not Myself, Not Anymore. And You're Not Either. You Don't Seem Yourself. Not As I Remember You.

As A Novelist, I'm Incredibly Lucky To Make A Living, But That Doesn't Mean That I Don't Lie Awake At Four O'clock In The Morning, Worrying.

The Problem With All These Fiercely Individualistic Girls Was That They Were All Exactly The Same.

Individualistic

Work Hard At . . . Something.

If There's Anything I'm Keen To Get Better At In My Writing, Then It's The Writing Of Prose As Opposed To The Writing Of Dialogue.

I Want My Best Friend Back, She Thinks, Because Without Him Nothing Is Good And Nothing Is Right.

She Glanced At The Other Diners, All Of Them Going Into Their Act, And Thought Is This What It All Boils Down To? Romantic Love, Is This All It Is, A Talent Show?

You've Got To Stop Letting Women Slip Drugs Into Your Mouth, Dex, It's Unhygienic. And Dangerous. One Day It'll Be A Cyanide Capsule.

I Know That For Every Reader Who Has Lost The Habit Or Can't Find The Time, There Are People Who've Never Enjoyed Reading And Question The Value Of Literature, Either As Entertainment Or Education, Or Believe That A Love Of Books, And Of Fiction In Particular, Is Sentimental Or Frivolous.

From An Evolutionary Point Of View, Most Emotions - Fear, Desire, Anger - Serve Some Practical Purpose, But Nostalgia Is A Useless, Futile Thing Because It Is A Longing For Something That Is Permanently Lost . . . .

I Think You’re Amazing,’ Someone Says To Someone Else, But It Doesn’t Matter Who, Because They’re All Amazing Really. People Are Amazing.

My 20s Was A Sea Of Worry. I Worried About Benefit Forms, About Being Thrown Out Of My Flat. I Never Went On Holiday Because I Thought: 'what If An Audition Comes Up?' I Was A Nervous Wreck.

I Think Reality Is Over-rated

It's Hard To Overestimate The Teenage Appetite For High Drama.

The True Writer, The Born Writer, Will Scribble Words On Scraps Of Litter, The Back Of A Bus Tickets, On The Wall Of A Cell.

An Adaptation Leads The Cinema-goer To The Original To Find Out What They're Missing And If They Already Know The Book, It Can Still Illuminate A Theme, A Character, An Idea.

Oh You Know Me. I Have No Emotions. I'm A Robot. Or A Nun. A Robot Nun.

I Really Was A Terrible Actor. I Did It For Years In My Twenties Because It Was Like Being At University Again.

Screenwriting Is Always About What People Say Or Do, Whereas Good Writing Is About A Thought Process Or An Abstract Image Or An Internal Monologue, None Of Which Works On Screen.

Do You Miss Her?' 'who? Emma? Of Course. Every Day. She Was My Best Friend.

To Have Had Fame, Even Very Minor Fame, And To Have Lost It, Got Older And Maybe Put On A Little Weight Is A Kind Of Living Death.

David Holdaway Was My Stage Name. I Was An Actor For About Eight Years In The '90s. I Had To Change My Name Because There Was Another David Nicholls, And I Thought If I Changed It To My Mother's Name, She'd Be Touched.

The Future Rose Up Ahead Of Her, A Succession Of Empty Days, Each More Daunting And Unknowable Than The One Before Her.

The Fact Was I Loved My Wife To A Degree That I Found Impossible To Express, And So Rarely Did.

No, Friends Were Like Clothes: Fine While They Lasted But Eventually They Wore Thin Or You Grew Out Of Them.

There's Something Unnatural About A Woman Finding Babies Or, More Specifically, Conversation About Babies, Boring. They'll Think She's Bitter, Jealous, Lonely. But She's Also Bored Of Everybody Telling Her How Lucky She Is, What With All That Sleep And All That Freedom And Spare Time, The Ability To Go On Dates Or Head Off To Paris At A Moments Notice. It Sounds Like They're Consoling Her, And She Resents This And Feels Patronized By It.

…and You Smile Back And Try Not To Think About The Fact That You Have Nothing, Absolutely Nothing, To Say To Each Other.

A Moment Passed, Perhaps Half A Second When Their Faces Said What They Felt, And Then Emma Was Smiling, Laughing, Her Arms Around His Neck.

I Work Three Days At Home, And Two Days In The British Library Or The London Library, Just To Get Out Of The House And Hide From The Children.

Well, I Don't Think Hollywood's A Dirty Word At All, I Love A Lot Of Hollywood Films.

Hollywood Films

[he] Didn’t Like To Think Of Himself As Vain, But There Were Definitely Times When He Wished There Was Someone On Hand To Take His Photograph.

You Feel A Little Bit Lost Right Now About What To Do With Your Life, A Bit Rudderless And Oarless And Aimless But That's Okay That's Alright Because We're All Meant To Be Like That At Twenty-four.

If You're My Friend I Should Be Able To Talk To You But I Can't, And If I Can't Talk To You, Well, What Is The Point Of You? Of Us?

The City Had Defeated Her, Just Like They Said It Would. Like Some Overcrowded Party, No One Had Noticed Her Arrival, And Would Notice If She Left.

I've Only Ever Been Recognised In The Street Once. In Sweden, Strangely.

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.

Whatever Happens Tomorrow, We Had Today; And I'll Always Remember It

Imagine Staying Awake All Night Not Because You're Worried About The Future But Because It's Fun

At Some Point You’ll Have To Get Serious About Life.

When You're Reading A Book, You're Always Looking For The Natural Place To Stop. With A Movie, You Can't Really Have That Sense Of It Coming Momentarily To A Halt; There's Pressure To Keep The Momentum Up.

Occasionally, Very Occasionally, Say At Four O’clock In The Afternoon On A Wet Sunday, She Feels Panic-stricken And Almost Breathless With Loneliness. Once Or Twice She Has Been Known To Pick Up The Phone To Check That It Isn’t Broken. Sometimes She Thinks How Nice It Would Be To Be Woken By A Call In The Night: ‘get In A Taxi Now’ Or ‘i Need To See You, We Need To Talk’. But At The Best Of Times She Feels Like A Character In A Muriel Spark Novel – Independent, Bookish, Sharp-minded, Secretly Romantic.

For Some Time Now She Has Had The Conviction That Life Is About To Change If Only Because It Must. . . .

The Trick Of It, She Told Herself, Is To Be Courageous And Bold And Make A Different. Not Change The World Exactly, Just The Bit Around You. Go Out There With Your Double-first, Your Passion And Your New Smith Carona Electric Typewriter And Work Hard At ... Something. Change Lives Through Art Maybe. Write Beautifully. Cherish Your Friends, Stay True To Your Principles, Live Passionately And Fully And Well. Experience New Things. Love And Be Loved If At All Possible. East Sensibly. Stuff Like That.

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.

It's The Face Itself That I Love, Not That Face At Twenty-eight Or Thirty-four Or Forty-three. It's That Face.

You Know What I Can't Understand? You Have All These People Telling You All The Time How Great You Are, Smart And Funny And Talented And All That, I Mean Endlessly, I've Been Telling You For Years. So Why Don't You Believe It? Why Do You Think People Say That Stuff, Em? Do You Think It's A Conspiracy, People Secretly Ganging Up To Be Nice About You?

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George Saunders

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