May 8, 2011

David Nicholls's One Day

I have recently finished One Day by David Nicholls. I loved it, it was just the thing I needed after the hard labour of thesis writing. I have to say, it is definitely a must read. A re-read, even. (Especially since its film adaptation is coming out this summer, from the director of An Education, starring Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess. Can hardly wait to see it!)
Here are a few of my favorite quotes from the book.
(A more detailed review should come some time soonish.)

"What are you going to do with your life?" In one way or another it seemed that people had been asking her this forever; teachers, her parents, friends at three in the morning, but the question had never seemed this pressing and still she was no nearer an answer... "Live each day as if it's your last', that was the conventional advice, but really, who had the energy for that? What if it rained or you felt a bit glandy? It just wasn't practical. Better by far to be good and courageous and bold and to make difference. Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you. Cherish your friends, stay true to your principles, live passionately and fully and well. Experience new things. Love and be loved, if you ever get the chance." 

"...you feel a little bit lost right now about what to do with your life, a bit rudderless and oarless and aimless but that's okay that's alright because we're all meant to be like that at twenty-four."  

"She drinks pints of coffee and writes little observations and ideas for stories with her best fountain pen on the linen-white pages of expensive notebooks. Sometimes, when it's going badly, she wonders if what she believes to be a love of the written word is really just a fetish for stationery. The true writer, the born writer, will scribble words on scraps of litter, the back of a bus tickets, on the wall of a cell. Emma is lost on anything less than 120gsm." 

"But at the best of times she feels like a character in a Muriel Spark novel - independent, bokish, sharp-minded, secretley romantic."

No comments:

Post a Comment