Quotes From "One Day" By David Nicholls

This is where it all begins. Everything starts here, today.
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This is where it all begins. Everything starts here, today. David Nicholls
You're gorgeous, you old hag, and if I could give...
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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 David Nicholls
You can live your whole life not realizing that what...
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You can live your whole life not realizing that what you're looking for is right in front of you. David Nicholls
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Can I say something?'' Go on'' I'm a little drunk'' Me too. That's okay.'' Just.. I missed you, you know.'' I missed you too.'' But so, so much, Dexter. There were so many things I wanted to talk to you about, and you weren't there-''same here.'' I tell you what it is. It's...When I didn't see you, I thought about you every day, I mean EVERY DAY in some way or another-''same here.''- Even if it was just "I wish Dexter could see this" or "Where's Dexter now?" or "Christ that Dexter, what an idiot", you know what I mean, and seeing you today, well, I thought I'd got you back - my BEST friend. And now all this, the wedding, the baby- I'm so happy for you, Dex, but it feels like I've lost you again.'--' You know what happens you have a family, your responsibilities change, you lose touch with people'' It won't be like that, I promise.'' Do you?'' Absolutely'' You swear? No more disappearing?'' I won't if you won't.' Their lips touched now, mouths pursed tight, their eyes open, both of them stock still. The moment held, a kind of glorious confusion. . David Nicholls
Dexter, I love you so much. So, so much, and...
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Dexter, I love you so much. So, so much, and I probably always will. I just don't like you anymore. I'm sorry. David Nicholls
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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 practical. Better by far to be good and courageous and bold and to make difference. Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you. Cherish your friends, stay true to your principles, live passionately and fully and well. Experience new things. Love and be loved, if you ever get the chance. . David Nicholls
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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? David Nicholls
Call me sentimental, but there's no-one in the world that...
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Call me sentimental, but there's no-one in the world that I'd like to see get dysentery more than you David Nicholls
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This is me.’" He handed her the precious scrap of paper. ‘Call me or I’ll call you, but one of us will call, yes? What I mean is it’s not a competition. You don’t lose if you phone first. David Nicholls
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Happyish. Well, happyish isn't so bad.'' It's the most we can hope for. David Nicholls
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She drinks pints of coffee and writes little observations and ideas for stories with her best fountain pen on the linen-white pages of expensive notebooks. Sometimes, when it's going badly, she wonders if what she believes to be a love of the written word is really just a fetish for stationery. David Nicholls
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For his thirtieth birthday he had filled a whole night-club off Regent Street; people had been queuing on the pavement to get in. The SIM card of his mobile phone in his pocket was overflowing with telephone numbers of all the hundreds of people he had met in the last ten years, and yet the only person he had ever wanted to talk to in all that time was standing now in the very next room. David Nicholls
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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 they wanted to share your bed, just for company? If you quoted Bob Dylan or T.S. Eliot or, God forbid, Brecht at someone these days they would smile politely and step quietly backwards, and who would blame them? Ridiculous, at thirty-eight, to expect a song or book or film to change your life. No, everything had evened out and settled down and life was lived against a general background hum of comfort, satisfaction and familiarity. There would be no more of these nerve-jangling highs and lows. The friends they had now would be the friends they had in five, ten, twenty years’ time. They expected to get neither dramatically richer or poorer; they expected to stay healthy for a little while yet. Caught in the middle; middle class, middle-aged; happy in that they were not overly happy. Finally, she loved someone and felt fairly confident that she was loved in return. If someone asked Emma, as they sometimes did at parties, how she and her husband had met, she told them:‘ We grew up together. David Nicholls
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He put one hand lightly on the back of her neck and simultaneously she placed one hand lightly on his hip, and they kissed in the street as all around them people hurried home in the summer light, and it was the sweetest kiss that either of them would ever know. This is where it all begins. Everything starts here, today. And then it was over. David Nicholls
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What if it rained or you felt a bit glandy? It just wasn't practical. Better by far to simply try and be good and courageous and bold and to make a difference. Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you. David Nicholls
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Sometimes, when it’s going badly, she wonders if what she believes to be a love of the written word is really just a fetish for stationery. The true writer, the born writer, will scribble words on scraps of litter, the back of a bus tickets, on the wall of a cell. Emma is lost on anything less than 120gsm. David Nicholls
...Next thing I know you've run off to Paris and...
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...Next thing I know you've run off to Paris and thrown yourself under the nearest Frenchman- Nicholls David
Okay, well I think the programme is like being screamed...
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Okay, well I think the programme is like being screamed at for an hour by a drunk with a strobe-light, but like I said-- David Nicholls
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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 politely and step quietly backwards, and who would blame them? Ridiculous, at 38, to expect a song or book or film to change your life. David Nicholls
A moment passed, perhaps half a second when their faces...
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A moment passed, perhaps half a second when their faces said what they felt, and then Emma was smiling, laughing, her arms around his neck. David Nicholls
If you're my friend I should be able to talk...
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If you're my friend I should be able to talk to you but I can't, and if I can't talk to you, well, what is the point of you? Of us? David Nicholls
Maybe we've grown out of each other.
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Maybe we've grown out of each other. David Nicholls
I'm just not prepared to be treated like this anymore.''...
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I'm just not prepared to be treated like this anymore.'' Treated like what?' She sighed, and it was a moment before she spoke. 'Like you always want to be somewhere else, with someone else. David Nicholls
No, friends were like clothes: fine while they lasted but...
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No, friends were like clothes: fine while they lasted but eventually they wore thin or you grew out of them. David Nicholls
Their friendship was like a wilted bunch of flowers that...
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Their friendship was like a wilted bunch of flowers that she insisted on topping up with water. Why not let it die instead? It was unrealistic to expect a friendship to last forever… David Nicholls
Dexter, I love you so much. So, so much, and...
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Dexter, I love you so much. So, so much, and I probably always will.' Her lips touched his cheek. 'I just don't like you anymore. I'm sorry. David Nicholls
You start out wanting to change the world through language,...
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You start out wanting to change the world through language, and end up thinking it's enough to tell a few good jokes. David Nicholls
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Keep the change, " he smiled. Was there ever a more empowering phrase than "Keep the change"? David Nicholls
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Cuddling was for great aunts and teddy bears. Cuddling gave him cramp. David Nicholls
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And is that what love looks like -- all wet mouths and your skirt rucked up?"" Sometimes it is. David Nicholls
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Maybe they're in love."" And is that what love looks like - all wet mouths and your skirt rucked up?"" Sometines it is. David Nicholls
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I'm just not going to do it so that we can say that we've done it. And I'm not going to do it if the first thing you say afterwards is 'please don't tell anyone' or 'let's forget it ever happened'. If you have to keep something secret it's because you shouldn't be doing it in the first place! David Nicholls
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All his words and actions would now be fit for his daughter’s ears and eyes. Life would be lived as if under [her] constant scrutiny. He would never do anything that might cause her pain or anxiety or embarrassment and there would be nothing, absolutely nothing in his life to be ashamed of anymore. David Nicholls
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Self-pitying, self-righteous, self-important, all the selfs except self-confident, the quality that she always needed the most. David Nicholls
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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 and then squeeze it out again. David Nicholls
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You can live your whole life not realising that what you're looking for is right in front of you. David Nicholls
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And there it is again, the look. There's no doubt about it, if Sylvie had a receipt, she would have taken him back by now; this one's gone wrong. It's not what I wanted. David Nicholls
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He hadn't been this nervous since the last disastrous night at the improv, and he firmly told himself to calm down as he blotted at the tablecloth, glancing upwards to see Emma wriggling out of her summer jacket, pushing her shoulders back and her chest forward in that way that women do without realising the ache they cause. David Nicholls
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He swatted at her with his book. "Shut up and read, will you?" He lay back down and closed his eyes. Emma glanced over to check that he was smiling, and smiled too. David Nicholls
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Who's he seeing now then?"" No idea. They're like funfair goldfish; no point giving them names, they never last that long. David Nicholls
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You should visit the Palatine. It's at the top of that hill. .. ""I know where the Palatine is, Dexter, I was visiting Rome before you were born."" Yes, who was emperor back then? David Nicholls
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These days grief seems like walking on a frozen river; most of the time he feels safe enough, but there is always that danger that he will plunge through. Now he hears the ice creak beneath him, and so intense and panicking is the sensation that he has to stand for a moment, press his hands to his face and catch his breath. David Nicholls
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There is a point in the future where even the worst disaster starts to settle into an anecdote. David Nicholls
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It's scented! Your wedding invitations are scented?"" It's meant to be lavender."" No, Dex - it's money. It smells of money. David Nicholls
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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 novel — independent, bookish, sharp-minded, secretly romantic. . David Nicholls
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He wanted to live life to the extreme, but without any mess or complications. He wanted to live life in such a way that if a photograph were taken at random, it would be a cool photograph. Things should look right. Fun; there should be a lot of fun and no more sadness than absolutely necessary. David Nicholls
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The beauty of the ultrasound scan is something that only parents can appreciate, but Emma had seen these things before and knew what was required of her. ‘Beautiful, ’ she sighed, though in truth it could have been a Polaroid of the inside of his pocket. David Nicholls
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Every week seems to bring another luxuriantly creamy envelope, the thickness of a letter-bomb, containing a complex invitation — a triumph of paper engineering — and a comprehensive dossier of phone numbers, email addresses, websites, how to get there, what to wear, where to buy the gifts. Country house hotels are being block-booked, great schools of salmon are being poached, vast marquees are appearing overnight like Bedouin tent cities. Silky grey morning suits and top hats are being hired and worn with an absolutely straight face, and the times are heady and golden for florists and caterers, string quartets and Ceilidh callers, ice sculptors and the makers of disposable cameras. Decent Motown cover-bands are limp with exhaustion. Churches are back in fashion, and these days the happy couple are travelling the short distance from the place of worship to the reception on open-topped London buses, in hot-air balloons, on the backs of matching white stallions, in micro-lite planes. A wedding requires immense reserves of love and commitment and time off work, not least from the guests. Confetti costs eight pounds a box. A bag of rice from the corner shop just won’t cut it anymore. David Nicholls
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Letters, like compilation tapes, were really vehicles for unexpressed emotions and she was clearly putting far too much time and energy into them. David Nicholls
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He had always imagined that some sort of emotional mental equipment was meant to arrive, when he was forty-five, say, or fifty, a kind of kit that would enable him to deal with the impending loss of a parent. If he were only in possession of this equipment, he would be just fine. He would be noble and selfless, wise and philosophical. Perhaps he would even have kids of his own, and would presumably possess the kind of maturity that comes with fatherhood, the understanding of life as a process. . David Nicholls