Find the thing you love, and do it with all your heart, to the absolute best of your ability, no matter what people say.

Cuddling was for great aunts and teddy bears. Cuddling gave him cramp.

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.

…surprised all over again at how very comforting very bad food can be.

A joke was not a single-use item but something you brought out again and again until it fell apart in your hand like a cheap umbrella.

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 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.