Contemporary poetry is a kind of Reykjavík, a place where accessibility and intelligence have been fighting a Cold War by proxy for the last half-century.

— Nick Hornby

Dave and Serge...played the Fiddler's Elbow as if it were Giants Stadium, and even though it was acoustic, they just about blew the place up. They were standing on chairs ADN lying on the floor, they were funny, they charmed everyone in the pub apart from an old drunk hitting next to the drum kit...who put his fingers firmly in his ears during Serge's extended harmonica solo. It was utterly bizarre and very moving: most musicians wouldn't have bothered turning up, let alone almost killing themselves. And I was reminded...how rarely one feels included in a live show. Usually you watch, and listen, and drift off, and the band plays well or doesn't, and it doesn't matter much either way. It can actually be a very lonely experience. But I felt a part of the music, and a part of the people I'd gone with, and, to cut this short before the encores, I didn't want to read for about a fortnight afterward. I wanted to write, but I didn't want to read no book. I was too itchy, too energized, and if young people feel like that every night of the week, then, yes, literature's dead as a dodo.(Nick's thoughts after seeing Mara hat a little pub called Fiddler's Elbow.)

— Nick Hornby

Defeated misery is what all sport is about, eventually, if you follow the story for long enough; all sportsmen know this.

— Nick Hornby

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 is - 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 asshole now?

— Nick Hornby

Easily the best thing in her life at the moment was her secret.

— Nick Hornby

Even thought our problems had driven us up there, it was as if they had somehow, like Dales, been unable to climb the stairs.

— Nick Hornby

Everyone disliked their partners at some time or another, she knew that. But she’d spent her hours in the dark wondering whether she’d ever liked him. Would it really have been so much worse to spend those years alone? Why did there have to be someone else in the room while she was eating, watching TV, sleeping?

— Nick Hornby

Everything's complicated, even those things that seem flat in their bleakness or sadness.

— Nick Hornby

Experience, then, was something that enabled you to do nothing with a clear conscience. Experience was an overrated quality.

— Nick Hornby

For the first time, but certainly not the last, I began to believe that Arsenal's moods and fortunes somehow reflected my own

— Nick Hornby