Youth is a quality not unlike health: it's found in greater abundance among the young, but we all need access to it. Nick Hornby More Quotes by Nick Hornby More Quotes From Nick Hornby Have you got any soul?" a woman asks the next afternoon. That depends, I feel like saying; some days yes, some days no. A few days ago I was right out; now I've got loads, too much, more than I can handle. I wish I could spread it a bit more evenly, I want to tell her, get a better balance, but I can't seem to get it sorted. I can see she wouldn't be interested in my internal stock control problems though, so I simply point to where I keep the soul I have, right by the exit, just next to the blues. Nick Hornby balance soul wish The plain state of being human is dramatic enough for anyone; you don't need to be a heroin addict or a performance poet to experience extremity. You just have to love someone. Nick Hornby dramatic being-human needs It's brilliant, being depressed; you can behave as badly as you like. Nick Hornby being-depressed brilliant depression Sarcasm and compassion are two of the qualities that make life on Earth tolerable. Nick Hornby sarcasm compassion two One could argue that most of the trouble in the world is caused by introspection. Nick Hornby pride arguing world I had to nurture those doubts as if they were tiny, sickly kittens, until eventually they became sturdy, healthy grievances, with their own cat doors, which allowed them to wander in and out of our conversation at will. Nick Hornby cat healthy doors We had no irony when it came to girls, though. There was just no time to develop it. One moment they weren't there, not in any form that interested us, anyway, and the next you couldn't miss them; they were everywhere, all over the place. One moment you wanted to clonk them on the head for being your sister, or someone else's sister, and the next you wanted to....actually, we didn't know what we wanted next, but it was something. Almost overnight, all these sisters (there was no other kind of girl, not yet)had become interesting, disturbing, even. Nick Hornby girl missing interesting Unhappiness really meant something back then. Now it's just a drag, like a cold or having no money. Nick Hornby drag unhappiness cold I never really recovered from the shock of discovering that women do what we do; they save their best pairs for the nights when they are going to sleep with somebody. When you live with a woman, these faded, shrunken tatty scraps suddenly appear on radiators all over the house; your lascivious schoolboy dreams of adulthood as a time when you are surrounded by exotic lingerie for ever and ever amen...those dreams crumble to dust. Nick Hornby dream sleep night There were about seventy-nine squillion people in the world, and if you were very lucky, you would end up being loved by fifteen or twenty of them. Nick Hornby lucky twenties people I used to think--and given the way we ended up, maybe I still do--that all relationships need the kind of violent shove that a crush brings, just to get you started and to push you over the humps. And then, when the energy from that shove has gone and you come to something approaching a halt, you have to look around and see what you've got. It could be something completely different, it could be something roughly the same, but gentler and calmer, or it could be nothing at all. Nick Hornby crush relationship thinking Life isn't, and has never been, a 2-0 home victory after a fish and chip lunch. Nick Hornby victory lunch home A man who wants to die feels angry and full of life and desperate and bored and exhausted, all at the same time; he wants to fight everyone, and he wants to curl up in a ball and hide in a cupboard somewhere. He wants to say sorry to everyone, and he wants everyone to know just how badly they've all let him down. Nick Hornby fighting sorry death And it isn't that I'm so unhappy I don't want to live anymore. That's not what it feels like. It feels more like I'm tired and bored and the party's gone on too long and I want to go home. I feel flat and there doesn't seem to be anything to look forward to, so I'd rather call it a day. Nick Hornby tired party home Definitely avoid going out with ugly girls who say they want to be models. Not because they're ugly, but because they're mad". Nick Hornby ugly mad girl Look at all the things that can go wrong for men. There’s the nothing-happening-at-all problem, the too-much-happening-too-soon problem, the dismal-droop-after-a-promising-beginning problem; there’s the size-doesn’t-matter-except-in-my-case problem, the failing-to-deliver-the-goods problem…and what do women have to worry about? A handful of cellulite? Join the club. A spot of I-wonder-how-I-rank? Ditto. Nick Hornby worry men looks It's no wonder we're all such a mess, is it? We're like Tom Hanks in Big. Little boys and girls trapped in adult bodies and forced to get on with it. Nick Hornby adults girl boys For alarmingly large chunks of an average day, I am a moron. Nick Hornby fever-pitch moron average I love the detail about the workings of the human heart and mind that only fiction can provide - film can't get in close enough. Nick Hornby details mind heart We can't be as good as we'd want to, so the question then becomes, how do we cope with our own badness? Nick Hornby badness want
