Nick Hornby: ...You can find people. It's like those acrobatic display...

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

expression self book

Record stores can't save your life. But they can give you a better one.

Nick Hornby

stores records giving

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

expression self book

It's a mystery of human chemistry and I don't understand it, some people, as far as their senses are concerned, just feel like home.

Nick Hornby

chemistry home people

People worry about kids playing with guns, and teenagers watching violent videos; we are scared that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands - literally thousands - of songs about broken hearts and rejection and pain and misery and loss.

Nick Hornby

music pain song

I'm a good person. In most ways. But I'm beginning to think that being a good person in most ways doesn't count for anything very much, if you're a bad person in one way.

Nick Hornby

good-person way thinking

What came first – the music or the misery? Did I listen to the music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to the music? Do all those records turn you into a melancholy person?

Nick Hornby

records music firsts

Sentimental music has this great way of taking you back somewhere at the same time that it takes you forward, so you feel nostagic and hopeful all at the same time.

Nick Hornby

sentimental hopeful way

Everyone knows how to talk, and no one knows what to say.

Nick Hornby

long-way-down know-how knows

It's no good pretending that any relationship has a future if your record collections disagree violently or if your favorite films wouldn't even speak to each other if they met at a party.

Nick Hornby

boyfriend husband relationship

I can see that now. I can see everything once it’s already happened — I’m very good at the past. It’s the present I can’t understand.

Nick Hornby

very-good happened past

I lost the plot for a while then. And I lost the subplot, the script, the soundtrack, the intermission, my popcorn, the credits, and the exit sign.

Nick Hornby

popcorn credit plot

Did I do and say these things? Yes, I did. Are there any mitigating circumstances? Not really, unless any circumstances {in other words, context) can be regarded as mitigating. And before you judge, although you have probably already done so, go away and write down the four worst things you have done to a partner, even if - especially if - your partner doesn't know about them. Don't dress things up, or try to explain them; just write them down, in a list, in the plainest language possible. Finished? Ok, so who's the arsehole now?

Nick Hornby

going-away judging writing

We all spend so much time not saying what we want, because we know we can't have it. And because it sounds ungracious, or ungrateful, or disloyal, or childish, or banal. Or because we're so desperate to pretend that things are OK, really, that confessing to ourselves they're not looks like a bad move. Go on, say what you want. ... Whatever it is, say it to yourself. The truth will set you free. Either that or it'll get you a punch in the nose. Surviving in whatever life you're living means lying, and lying corrodes the soul, so take a break from the lies for just one minute.

Nick Hornby

mean lying moving

You don't ask people with knives in their stomachs what would make them happy; happiness is no longer the point. It's all about survival; it's all about whether you pull the knife out and bleed to death or keep it in.

Nick Hornby

knives happiness life

When you get older, it feels like happy memories and sad memories are pretty much the same thing. It is all just emotion in the end. And any of it can make you weep.

Nick Hornby

emotion ends memories

...self-consciousness is a man's worst enemy.

Nick Hornby

worst-enemy self men

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

important trying book

Even bad times have good things in them to make you feel alive.

Nick Hornby

bad-times alive good-things

I couldn’t bear to think about the proper future, so I just tried to make things better for the next twenty minutes or so, over and over again.

Nick Hornby

twenties life thinking

...You can find people. It's like those acrobatic displays.... Those ones when you stand on top of loads of people in a pyramid. It doesn't really matter who they are, as long as they're there and you don't let them go away without finding someone else.