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58a74f0
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Reciprocation was a pretty powerful stimulant to the imagination.
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lovers
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Nick Hornby |
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7c3a2b0
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I had forgotten that Jess felt about long words the way that racists feel about black people: she hated them, and wanted to send them back from where they came from.
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Nick Hornby |
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59a3f27
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How do people cope? Do you have to go? What happens if you refuse on the grounds of it being just too fucking grim?
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Nick Hornby |
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a720278
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Like most depressions that plague people who have been more fortunate than most, I was ashamed of mine because there appeared to me no convincing cause for it; I just felt as though I had come off the rails somewhere.
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Nick Hornby |
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44791b2
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The point is not that my life is one long golden summer which I am simply too self-absorbed to appreciate (although it might be, of course, and I am simply too self-absorbed to appreciate it), but that happy moments are possible, and while happy moments are possible I have no right to demand anything more for myself, given the havoc that would be wrought.
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Nick Hornby |
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96db13a
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La gente si preoccupa perche i ragazzini giocano con le armi, perche gli adolescenti guardano film violenti; c'e la paura che nei giovani finisca per imporsi una specie di cultura della violenza. Nessuno si preoccupa dei ragazzini che ascoltano migliaia di canzoni - migliaia, letteralmente - che parlano di cuori spezzati, e abbandoni e dolore e sofferenza e perdita. Le persone piu infelici che conosco, dico in senso amoroso, sono anche quel..
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Nick Hornby |
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1f17846
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She regretted the explanation immediately, but that was because she always regretted everything. And then, after the regret had flared and burned out, she didn't care. He should know, she thought. She wanted him to know. She felt something for somebody, and she'd told him.
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Nick Hornby |
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2833523
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It was as if I were powerless to resist the temptation; my senses were overcome. I could hear the emptiness, and taste the silence, and smell the solitude, and I wanted it more than I have ever wanted anything before.
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Nick Hornby |
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eddbf03
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Even though we get a lot of people into the shop, only a small percentage of them buy anything. The best customers are the ones who just have to buy a record on a Saturday, even if there's nothing they really want; unless they go home clutching a flat, square carrier bag they feel uncomfortable. You can spot the vinyl addicts because after a while they get fed up with the rack they are flicking through, march over to a completely different ..
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Nick Hornby |
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582c4bd
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The Marie bit is easy enough to understand, then. The Laura thing takes a bit more explaining, but what it is, I think, is this: sentimental music has this great way of taking you back somewhere at the same time that it takes you forward, so you feel nostalgic and hopeful all at the same time. Marie's the hopeful, forward part of it - maybe not her, necessarily, but somebody like her, somebody who can turn things around for me. (Exactly tha..
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Nick Hornby |
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78d19bf
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They'd been told, several times, by colleagues ... that the sea was warmer over there [abroad], and the skies bluer, and the food was like nothing you could buy in London no matter how much you spent. But none of those colleagues had done what Tony had wanted to do when he got back: grab people by the lapels and shout at them, wide-eyed, until they agreed to book tickets. Most people in England, he thought, had no idea that within a few hou..
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Nick Hornby |
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44471e4
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You see, what I really want, and what I'm getting with Stephen, is the opportunity to rebuild myself from scratch. David's picture of me is complete now, and I'm pretty sure neither of us likes it much; I want to rip the page out and start again on a fresh sheet, just like I used to do when I was a kid and had messed a drawing up. It doesn't even matter who the fresh sheet is, really, so its beside the point whether I like Stephen, or wheth..
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Nick Hornby |
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d05150b
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What a terrible thing an education was, he thought, if it produced the kind of mind that despised entertainment and the people who valued it.
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Nick Hornby |
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bbe472a
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Because it's a brilliant film. It's funny, and violent, and it's got Harvey Keitel and Tim Roth in it, and everything. And a cracking sound track. Maybe there's no comparison between Ian sleeping with Laura and Reservoir Dogs after all. Ian hasn't got Harvey Keitel and Tim Roth in him. And Ian's not funny. Or violent. And he's got a crap sound track, judging from what we used to hear through the ceiling. I've taken this as far as it will go..
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Nick Hornby |
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abafd2d
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Years and years ago, I read a great interview with Jam and Lewis, the R&B producers, in which they described what it was like to be members of Prince's band. They'd sit down, and Prince would tell them what he wanted them to play, and they'd explain that they couldn't--they weren't quick enough, or good enough. And Prince would push them and push them until they mastered it, and then just when they were feeling pleased with themselves for a..
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learning
music
encouragement
prince
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Nick Hornby |
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43863ba
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I know, despite all the gloom and self-doubt that bubbles up from the deep when you get dumped, that you did not represent my last and best chance of a relationship. So, you know. Nice try. Close, but no cigar. See you around.
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Nick Hornby |
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d8c758f
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Ho da poco scoperto che la mia amica Mary, quando finisce un libro, fa passare qualche giorno prima di cominciarne un altro - vuole dare all'ultima lettura un po' piu di respiro, prima che venga soffocata dalla prossima. E una cosa sensata, e mi sembra una linea di comportamento assolutamente lodevole. Noi che leggiamo nevroticamente, tuttavia - per scongiurare la noia e il timore dell'ignoranza e della nostra morte imminente - non possiamo..
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lettura
libri
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Nick Hornby |
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8889400
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I work it out. It is the act of reading itself I miss, the opportunity to retreat further and further from the wold until I have found some space, some air that isn't stale, that hasn't been breathed by my family a thousand times already.
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Nick Hornby |
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b2e8b7e
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She was the spare room that never got tidied, the e-mail that never got answered, the loan that never got repaid, the symptom that never got described to a doctor.
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Nick Hornby |
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1004c17
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She sat down next to him, took one of his cigarettes, listened to his apologies. He was distraught, of course: he was just the kind of idiot who could only understand what things meant by doing them first.
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Nick Hornby |
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eb487f2
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Love meant being brave, otherwise you had already lost your own argument: the man who couldn't tell a woman he loved her was, by definition, not worthy of her.
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Nick Hornby |
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d26e974
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A while back, when Dick and Barry and I agreed that what really matters is what you like, not what you are like, Barry proposed the idea of a questionnaire for prospective partners.
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relationships
interests
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Nick Hornby |
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245e968
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I personally find that for domestic purposes, the Trivial Pursuit system works better than Dewey.
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libraries
cataloging
organization
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Nick Hornby |
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2f78682
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It seems to make a difference to some girls. If you say something that isn't sexist to the right sort ofgirl, she likes you more. Say one of your mates is going on about how all girls are stupid, and you say 'not all girls are stupid,' then it can make you look good. There have to be girls listening, though, obviously. Otherwise it's a waste of time.
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Nick Hornby |
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d54b3b2
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Someone like my mum would say, Oh, you're just a kid, you don't know what love is.But I didn't think of anything else apart from being with Alicia, and the only time I felt like I was where I wanted to be was when I was with her. I mean, that may as well be love, mightn't it?
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Nick Hornby |
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028486b
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I didn't make a nuisance of myself, not until the end, anyway, and I never outstayed my welcome, not while there was still a welcome to be outstayed; but I was kind and sincere and thoughtful and devoted and I remembered things about her and I told her she was beautiful and bought her little presents that usually referred to a conversation we had had recently. None of this was an effort, of course, and none of it was done with any sense of ..
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Nick Hornby |
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039d67d
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And I have to say, books haven't helped much with all this. Because whenever you read anything about love, whenever anyone tries to define it, there's always a state or an abstract noun, and I try to think of it like that. But actually, love is... Well, it's just you. And when you go, it's gone. Nothing abstract about it.
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love-quotes
relationships
love
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Nick Hornby |
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7b311f1
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This is how I feel, every day, and people don't want to know that. They want to know that I'm feeling what Tom Jones makes you feel. Or that Australian girl who used to be in Neighbours. But I feel like this, and they won't play what I feel on the radio, because people that are sad don't fit in.
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Nick Hornby |
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4bf1af3
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We have all lived through that shriveling moment when a parent walks into a room and repeats, with sardonic disbelief, a couplet picked up from the stereo or the TV. 'What does that mean, then?' my mother asked me during Top of the Pops. "Get it on / Bang a gong"? How long did it take him to think of that, do you reckon?' And the correct answer - 'Two seconds, and it doesn't matter' - is always beyond you, so you just tell her to shut up, w..
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music
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Nick Hornby |
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d0dc099
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Experience, then, was something that enabled you to do nothing with a clear conscience. Experience was an overrated quality.
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literature
nick-hornby
literature-quotes
novel
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Nick Hornby |
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7a76dba
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He wanted Rachel to be his wife, his lover, the centre of his whole world; a girlfriend implied that he would see her from time to time, that she would have some kind of independent existence away from him, and he didn't want that at all.
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Nick Hornby |
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cad8604
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Ken didn't die for your benefit, you know. It's like everyone's a supporting actor in the flm of your life story." Of course. Isn't that how it works for everybody?"
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Nick Hornby |
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22c8dca
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he's lonely, and lonely people are the bitterest of them all.
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Nick Hornby |
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15c725d
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Will hated Christmas, for the obvious reason: people knocked on his door, singing the song he hated more than any song in the world and expected him to give them money.
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Nick Hornby |
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f218b1e
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I have learned things from the game. Much of my knowledge of locations in Britain and Europe comes not from school, but from away games or the sports pages, and hooliganism has given me both a taste for sociology and a degree of fieldwork experience. I have learned the value of investing time and emotion in things I cannot control, and of belonging to a community whose aspirations I share completely and uncritically.
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Nick Hornby |
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26bfd1e
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She had come out tonight because she believed there had to be a present tense, somewhere, and she'd followed Gav and Barnesy because she'd hoped they knew where it was. Is. And they'd dragged her to yet another haunted house. Where was the now? In bloody America, probably, apart from the bit that Tucker lived in, or in bloody Tokyo. In any case, it was somewhere else. How could people who didn't live in bloody America or bloody Tokyo stand ..
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Nick Hornby |
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fce6b9b
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If he'd known how long he was going to spend in the airport lounge of his own life, he'd have made different travel arrangements..
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Nick Hornby |
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33fe2e8
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I'd saw there were millions like me, but there aren't, really: lots of blokes have impeccable music taste but don't read, lots of blokes read but are really fat, lots of blokes are sympathetic to feminism but have stupid beards, lots of blokes have a Woody Allen sense of humor but look like Woody Allen.
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Nick Hornby |
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c43df92
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Sorry Maureen.
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Nick Hornby |
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57db84c
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I wanted to hurt her, on this day of all days, just because it's the first time since she left that I've been able to.
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Nick Hornby |
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40e2eac
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He had to say that the thing he found most attractive about her was that she had tried to kill herself. Now that was interesting-- sexy, almost, in a morbid kind of way.
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Nick Hornby |
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eb71de6
|
When I look at my sins (and if I think they're sins, then they are sins), I can see the appeal of born-again Christianity. I suspect that it's not the Christianity that is so alluring; it's the rebirth. Because who wouldn't wish to start all over again?
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Nick Hornby |
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29f00fa
|
I had discovered after the Swindon game that loyalty, at least in football terms, was not a moral choice like bravery or kindness; it was more like a wart or a hump, something you were stuck with.
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Nick Hornby |
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6949d39
|
What better way to exorcise rejection demons than to screw the person who rejected you?
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Nick Hornby |