I'm still not a very good white wine, but I'm drinkable - you could put me in a punch, anyway.

Every time people force themselves to carry on with a book they're not enjoying, they reinforce the idea that reading is a duty.

Most people get suicide, I guess; most people, even if it's hidden deep down inside somewhere, can remember a time in their lives when they thought about whether they really wanted to wake up the next day. Wanting to die seems like it might be a part of being alive.

And mostly all I have to say about these songs is that I love them, and want to sing along to them, and force other people to listen to them, and get cross when these other people don't like them as much as I do.

Clockers" asks--almost in passing, and there's a lot more to it than this--a pretty interesting question: if you choose to work for the minimum wage when everyone around you is pocketing thousands from drug deals, then what does that do to you, to your head and to your heart? (Hornby's thoughts after reading "Clockers" by Richard Price)

But I suspect that all writers come up with premises of some kind, fragments of narrative or scenarios, in the course of a working week.

The natural state of the football fan is bitter disappointment, no matter what the score.