|
4ef79e2
|
This is where it all begins. Everything starts here, today.
|
|
love
|
David Nicholls |
|
e755a88
|
What are you going to do with your life?" In one way or another it seemed that people had been asking her this forever; teachers, her parents, friends at three in the morning, but the question had never seemed this pressing and still she was no nearer an answer... "Live each day as if it's your last', that was the conventional advice, but really, who had the energy for that? What if it rained or you felt a bit glandy? It just wasn't practic..
|
|
inspirational
|
David Nicholls |
|
e37977d
|
What are you going to do with your life?" In one way or another it seemed that people had been asking her this forever; teachers, her parents, friends at three in the morning, but the question had never seemed this pressing and still she was no nearer an answer... "Live each day as if it's your last', that was the conventional advice, but really, who had the energy for that? What if it rained or you felt a bit glandy? It just wasn't practic..
|
|
|
David Nicholls |
|
9a4d34e
|
Just kidding' was exactly what people wrote when they meant every word.
|
|
|
David Nicholls |
|
0c5db2e
|
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
|
|
love
self-confidence
|
David Nicholls |
|
b7add27
|
You can live your whole life not realizing that what you're looking for is right in front of you.
|
|
love
|
David Nicholls |
|
398941c
|
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?
|
|
humor
inspirational
|
David Nicholls |
|
a8211fe
|
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..
|
|
|
David Nicholls |
|
5256142
|
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 pol..
|
|
music
growing-up
|
David Nicholls |
|
ba5eedf
|
No, this, she felt, was real life and if she wasn't as curious or passionate as she had once been, that was only to be expected. It would be inappropriate, undignified, at thirty-eight, to conduct friendships or love affairs with the ardour and intensity of a twenty-two-year-old. Falling in love like that? Writing poetry, crying at pop songs? Dragging people into photo-booths, taking a whole day to make a compilation tape, asking people if ..
|
|
romance
|
David Nicholls |
|
af6f536
|
But at the best of times she feels like a character in a Muriel Spark novel -- independent, bookish, sharp-minded, secretly romantic.
|
|
|
David Nicholls |
|
a3c3270
|
She was talking too loud now, shouting almost, and a long silence followed. Why was she being like this? He was only trying to help. In what way did he benefit from this friendship? He should get up and walk away, that's what he should do. They turned to look at each other at the same time. "Sorry," he said. "No, I'm sorry." "What are you sorry for?" "Rattling on like a....mad cow. I'm sorry, I'm tired, bad day, and I'm sorry for being...so..
|
|
|
David Nicholls |
|
c9d8543
|
These words on the screen represented her latest project, an attempt at a series of commercial, discreetly feminist crime novels. She had read all of Agatha Christie at eleven years old, and later lots of Chandler and James M.Cain. There seemed no reason why she shouldn't try writing something in between, but 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. She..
|
|
|
David Nicholls |
|
12137f2
|
We go in and sit on the sofa by the fire to dry out, and she plays her favourite records, lots of Rickie Lee Jones and Led Zeppelin and Donovan and Bob Dylan - even though she was sixteen in 1982, there's definitely something very 1971 about Alice. I watch as she jumps around the room to 'Crosstown Traffic' by Jimi Hendrix, then when she's out of breath and tired of changing records every three minutes she puts a crackly old Ella Fitzgerald..
|
|
|
David Nicholls |
|
0067f8d
|
A veces uno es consciente de cuando estan produciendose los grandes momentos de su vida y a veces los descubre al mirar el pasado. Tal vez suceda lo mismo con las personas." James Salter, Quemar los dias"
|
|
|
David Nicholls |