You've got to stop letting women slip drugs into your mouth, Dex, it's unhygienic. And dangerous. One day it'll be a cyanide capsule.

The attraction of a life devoted to sensation, pleasure and self would probably wear thin one day, but there was still plenty of time for that yet.

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.

I suppose the important thing is to make some sort of difference,’ she siad. ‘You know, actually change something.’ ‘What, like “change the world”, you mean?’ ‘Not the whole entire world. Just the little bit around you.

I love that sound,' he mumbled into her hair. 'Blackbirds at dawn.' 'I hate it. Makes me think I've done something I'll regret.

Everything was fine, and she had the rare, new sensation of being exactly where she wanted to be.

No, friends were like clothes: fine while they lasted but eventually they wore thin or you grew out of them.