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Nick Hornby Quotes

Total quotes: 36
“I’m very good at the past. It’s the present I can’t understand.”
— Nick Hornby, High Fidelity
Tagged: Past, present
“It’s a mystery of human chemistry and I don’t understand it. Some people, as far as the senses are concerned, just feel like home.”
— Nick Hornby, High Fidelity
Tagged: Thoughts, Human Being, Home Is A Feeling
“You have to work at relationships. You can’t just walk out on them every time something goes wrong.”
— Nick Hornby, High Fidelity
Tagged: Relationship Advice, How To Stay In A Relationship, Commitment
“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, How to Be Good
Tagged: Happiness, Helping Others, Sympathize, Empathy
“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, How to Be Good
Tagged: human, Love, Human Nature, status, Proving something
“When I get hurt, something inside me just shuts off.”
— Nick Hornby, Fever Pitch
Tagged: Pain, hurt, Misery
“Everyone knows how to talk, and no one knows what to say.”
— Nick Hornby, A Long Way Down
Tagged: talking, saying, Context, Content, talking vs. saying, Communication
“You run the risk of losing anyone who is worth spending time with...”
— Nick Hornby, High Fidelity
Tagged: Losing Someone, risks, Love
“You know the worst thing about being rejected? The lack of control. If I could only control the when and how of being dumped by somebody, then it wouldn't seem as bad. But then, of course, it wouldn't be rejection, would it? It would be by mutual consent. It would be musical differences. I would be leaving to pursue a solo career. I know how unbelievably and pathetically childish it is to push and push like this for some degree of probability, but it's the only thing I can do to grab any sort of control back from her.”
— Nick Hornby, High Fidelity
Tagged: Rejection
“Some people, as far as your senses are concerned, just feel like home.”
— Nick Hornby, High Fidelity
Tagged: Special Feeling, Life, Words To Live By, Life Teachings, Concerned
“Heaven forbid we should end the evening reflecting on our own mortality.”
— David Goldman, An Education
Tagged: Mortality, Reflection, grim
“It’s brilliant, being depressed; you can behave as badly as you like.”
— Nick Hornby, High Fidelity
Tagged: Depression, depressed
“Patty: There. That's better. Now you don't look like you've just come in from milking the cows.

Ellis: Is that what I looked like?

Patty: Just a bit. Nice clean cows. Let's go.”
— Eilis Lacey, Brooklyn
Tagged: Immigration, American, Being an American, Milking Cows
“Diana: It's not politics to talk about eye operations.

Madge Kehoe: It is if the eyes belong to a politician.”
— Madge Kehoe, Brooklyn
Tagged: Politics, Politicians, anti-politician
“[Preparing for a weekend at the beach] Diana's right, though, Ellis. You need to think carefully about your costume. It's the most Tony will ever have seen of you. You don't want to put him off.”
— Madge Kehoe, Brooklyn
Tagged: costumes, Offputting
“...it’s no good pretending that any relationship has a future if your record collections disagree violently or if your favourite films wouldn’t even speak to each other if they met at a party.”
— Nick Hornby, High Fidelity
Tagged: Love, Love & Relationships, Relationships, Compatibility, romance
“You're the prettiest girl in County Wexford. You should be able to choose any man you want. And we're hoping that George Sheridan from the rugby club looks your way.”
— Eilis Lacey, Brooklyn
Tagged: Prettiest Girl, County Wexford, George Sheridan, Rugby
“Ellis: I wish that I could stop feeling that I want to be an Irish girl in Ireland.

Father Flood: Homesickness is like most sicknesses. It will pass.”
— Eilis Lacey, Brooklyn
Tagged: Immigration, American, Being an American, Homesick, Irish Girls, ireland
“Miss McAdam: One of the things that ruins Christmas in America is the turkey. Oh, it tastes of sawdust.

Madge Kehoe: So that's one cheese sandwich for Miss McAdam and extra turkey for everyone else!”
— Madge Kehoe, Brooklyn
Tagged: Christmas in America, Turkey
“I hope that when I go through the pearly gates, the first sound I hear is you asking me for the bill in that lovely Irish brogue.”
— Diner Waiter, Brooklyn
Tagged: Pearly Gates, Irish Brogue
“Try and remember that sometimes it's nice to meet people who don't know your auntie.”
— Georgina, Brooklyn
Tagged: Meeting new people, Auntie
“All that poetry and all those songs... about something that lasts no time at all.”
— Jenny Mellor, An Education
Tagged: Poetry, Song, Music, Muse
“Those days are gone, and good fucking riddance to them; unhappiness really meant something back then. Now it's just a drag, like a cold or having no money. If you really wanted to mess me up, you should have got to me earlier.”
— Nick Hornby, High Fidelity
Tagged: Unhappiness, Pain, Breakups, Moving On
“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, A Long Way Down
Tagged: Life, Challenge, Struggle, Difficulty
“The life I want, there's no shortcut.”
— Jenny Mellor, An Education
Tagged: Life, shortcut, goal
“Home is home.”
— Tony Fiorello, Brooklyn
Tagged: Home, It is what it is, Painfully Obvious
“I'd forgotten what this town is like. What were you planning to do, Miss Kelly? Keep me away from Jim? Stop me from going back to America? Perhaps you didn't even know. Perhaps it was enough for you to know that you could ruin me. My name is Ellis Fiorello.”
— Eilis Lacey, Brooklyn
Tagged: Immigration, American, Being an American
“If you never do anything, you never become anyone.”
— Jenny Mellor, An Education
Tagged: coming of age movies, Do Something, become someone
“...we're all cynics and romantics, sometimes simultaneously...”
— Nick Hornby, High Fidelity
Tagged: People, humans, Mankind, Human Beauty, Human All Too Human, Life
“Laurenzio: You'll have to go to Ebbets Field if you want to see him in the summer.

Ellis: They're that important to you?

Tony: Put it this way, if our kids end up supporting the Yankees or the Giants, it would break my heart.”
— Eilis Lacey, Brooklyn
Tagged: baseball, New York Yankees, New York Giants
“You have no idea how boring everything was before I met you.”
— Jenny Mellor, An Education
Tagged: Boring, life changing, idea
“I'd be perfectly happy with a tin of salmon.”
— Jack Mellor, An Education
Tagged: salmon, Dinner, Content
“I'll tell you this much: I am going to ask Father Flood to preach a sermon on the dangers of giddiness. I now see that giddiness is the eighth deadly sin. A giddy girl is every bit as evil as a slothful man, and the noise she makes is a lot worse. Now, enough.”
— Madge Kehoe, Brooklyn
Tagged: Sermon, Giddiness, Evil, Sloth
“I'm trying to work out what makes good things good.”
— Jenny Mellor, An Education
Tagged: Good, Thought, Questions, Wondering
“Nobody does anything worth doing with a degree.”
— Jenny Mellor, An Education
Tagged: degree, university, Profession, Career
“Would I get married again? No, I want to be waiting outside the bathroom of my boarding house forever. Of course, I do. That's why I go to that wretched dance every week. I want to be waiting outside my own bathroom, while some bad-tempered fellow with hair growing out of his ears reads the newspaper on the toilet and I wish I was back here, talking to you.”
— Sheila Heffernan, Brooklyn
Tagged: Marriage, boarding house, Toilet
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