David Nicholls (writer) - One Day (2009)

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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
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
As a matter of fact, I think there are more things important in life than "relationships.

David Nicholls
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.

David Nicholls
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
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.

David Nicholls
No, friends were like clothes: fine while they lasted but eventually they wore thin or you grew out of them.

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

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
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
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
Cuddling was for great aunts and teddy bears. Cuddling gave him cramp.

David Nicholls
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.

David Nicholls