David Nicholls (writer) Quotes

94 Sourced Quotes

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
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

David Nicholls
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.

David Nicholls
The fact was I loved my wife to a degree that I found impossible to express, and so rarely did.

David Nicholls
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.

David Nicholls
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.

David Nicholls
But how can you not like music? That's the same as not liking food! Or sex!

David Nicholls
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 Nicholls
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
She shouldn't speak her thoughts; nothing good ever came of speaking your thoughts.

David Nicholls
Just kidding' was exactly what people wrote when they meant every word.

David Nicholls
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
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.

David Nicholls
She had reached a turning point. She no longer believed that a situation could be made better by writing a poem about it.

David Nicholls
He has found himself more and more reliant on her at exactly the point that she has become less available to him.

David Nicholls
I'm not the consolation prize, Dex. I'm not something you resort to. I happen to think I'm worth more than that.

David Nicholls
And you smile back and try not to think about the fact that you have nothing, absolutely nothing, to say to each other.

David Nicholls
Dexter, I love you so much. So, so much, and I probably always will. I just don't like you anymore. I'm sorry.

David Nicholls
She wondered if she was doomed to be one of those people who spend their lives trying things.

David Nicholls
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
I'm trying to be inspiring! I'm trying to lift your grubby soul for the great adventure that lies ahead of you!

David Nicholls
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.

David Nicholls
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.

David Nicholls
Everything was fine, and she had the rare, new sensation of being exactly where she wanted to be.

David Nicholls
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
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.

David Nicholls
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.

David Nicholls
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
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.

David Nicholls
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?

David Nicholls