English - Novelist | November 30, 1966 -
I worry sometimes that I'm a bit moralistic; always writing about men who are learning to grow up, not be so self-absorbed, selfish or badly behaved. I wonder if that's dull and liberal and wimpy? I should probably write something that celebrates wickedness.
David Nicholls
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Most of the books and films I love walk a knife edge between romance and cynicism, and I wanted 'One Day' to stay on that line. I wanted it to be moving, but without being manipulative.
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I've only ever been recognised in the street once. In Sweden, strangely.
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If there's anything I'm keen to get better at in my writing, then it's the writing of prose as opposed to the writing of dialogue.
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I usually write on a computer - unless I get stuck, at which point I switch to write by hand. I think that's common among writers if they get cornered on something.
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I read a lot of F. Scott Fitzgerald. I love 'Tender is the Night,' and its atmosphere of doomed romance. He was one of the greatest prose stylists, with a wonderfully clear but lyrical quality.
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I identified with Pip from 'Great Expectations,' especially when I was younger; I had the same kind of gaucheness and uncertainty.
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I work three days at home, and two days in the British Library or the London Library, just to get out of the house and hide from the children.
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At university, I used to write silly little sketches and monologues, but never fiction.
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Fear and anxiety are great motivators for me.
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This might sound really foolish, but when I came to Edinburgh in 1988 I had spent nearly all my life living south of Bristol, and I was just amazed that a city like Edinburgh was actually in the British isles.
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I would never complain about 'One Day' taking off, but it made me painfully self-conscious for a long time.
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