The fact was I loved my wife to a degree that I found impossible to express, and so rarely did.

The future rose up ahead of her, a succession of empty days, each more daunting and unknowable than the one before her.

David Holdaway was my stage name. I was an actor for about eight years in the '90s. I had to change my name because there was another David Nicholls, and I thought if I changed it to my mother's name, she'd be touched.

Better by far to be good and courageous and bold and to make difference. Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you

You start out wanting to change the world through language, and end up thinking it's enough to tell a few good jokes.

People change, no use getting sentimental about it. Move on, find someone else.

I can't believe it's actually happening. This is independent adulthood, this is what it feels like. Shouldn't there be some sort of ritual? In certain remote African tribes there'd be some incredible four day rites of passage ceremony involving tattooing and potent hallucinogenic drugs extracted from tree-frogs, and village elders smearing my body with monkey blood, but here,rites of passage is all about three new pairs of pants and stuffing your duvet in a bin-liner.