It is the act of reading itself that I miss, the opportunity to retreat further and further from the world until I have found some space, some air that isn't stale, that hasn't been breathed by my family a thousand times already.
Nick HornbyI'd stay there, or not, and I'd eat, or not, and I'd drink, or not, and go home, or not, and what I did or didn't do wouldn't matter to anyone at all. And I walked for most of the day. Do people get sad on holiday sometimes? I can imagine they do, having all that time to think.
Nick HornbyThere had been times when he knew, somewhere in him, that he would get used to it, whatever it was, because he had learnt that some hard things became softer after a very little while.
Nick HornbyNo time spent with a book is ever entirely wasted, even if the experience is not a happy one: thereโs always something to be learned. Itโs just that, every now and again, you can hit a patch of reading that makes you feel as if youโre pootling about. [...] But what can you do about it? We donโt choose to waste our reading time; it just happens. The books let us down.
Nick HornbyThere are many differences between a baby and an I-Pod. And one of the biggest is, no ones going to mug you for your baby.
Nick HornbyBecause music, like color, or a cloud, is neither intelligent nor unintelligent - it just is. The chord, the simplest building block for even the tritest, silliest chart song, is a beautiful, perfect, mysterious thing, and when an ill-read, uneducated, uncultured, emotionally illiterate boor puts a couple of them together, he has every chance of creating something wonderful and powerful. All I ask of music is that is sounds good.
Nick Hornby