David Nicholls Quotes

I was read to as a small child, I read on my own as soon as I could, and I recall being more or less overwhelmed again and again - if not by what the books actually said, by what they suggested, what they helped me to imagine.

I can't pick out one single book that had such a profound personal impact.

I have to admit that I only read 'War and Peace' when I was 40. But I knew the basics before then.

The books we enjoy as children stay with us forever -- they have a special impact. Paragraph after paragraph and page after page, the author must deliver his or her best work.

There are books that one needs maturity to enjoy just as there are books an adult can come on too late to savor.

Stories you read when you're the right age never quite leave you. You may forget who wrote them or what the story was called.

I think enough cannot be said for what you can discover through literature. So I think that was probably my most valued characteristic as a teenager.

It is always in season for old men to learn.

A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.

The excitement of learning separates youth from old age. As long as you're learning you're not old.

I feel like I've been out of high school forever. So I just read to keep my mind going.

I'm not terribly well read. My wife forces books into my hands and insists I read them, which I'm grateful to her for. She made me read 'War and Peace.' The whole thing. It was amazing, but I had to hide it. You can't walk round reading 'War and Peace' - it's like you're in a comedy sketch and you think you're smart.

Study is the bane of childhood, the oil of youth, the indulgence of adulthood, and a restorative in old age.

Books, like friends, should be few and well chosen. Like friends, too, we should return to them again and again for, like true friends, they will never fail us - never cease to instruct - never cloy.

The ways in which a book, once read, stays (and changes) in the reader's mind are unpredictable.

I have a photograph of myself when I was 2 years of age, and I don't recognize the person in the photograph. She doesn't look anything like me, and I can't find any trace of her in me physically. And yet I remember her very, very well - even her anxiety.

I much prefer working with kids whose life could be completely upended by a reading of a book over a weekend. You give them a book to read - they go home and come back a changed person. And that is so much more interesting and exciting.

Ever read a book that changed your life? Me neither.

Sometimes novels are considered 'important' in the way medicine is - they taste terrible and are difficult to get down your throat, but are good for you.

It's possible of course, especially when you're young, to read a book and take it to your heart. And you don't need to speak to anybody about it - it's so important to you: You have found it.

I remember vividly what it's like to read as a 10-year-old - that passionate inhabiting of a book.

It is good even for old men to learn wisdom.

In a real sense, people who have read good literature have lived more than people who cannot or will not read. It is not true that we have only one life to live; if we can read, we can live as many more lives and as many kinds of lives as we wish.

One day at my grandmother's house, I discovered 'The Secret Garden' and read it. This was the first book I found entirely for myself, and I cherished it.

I'm still learning, you know. At 80, I feel there is a lot I don't know.