David Nicholls
David Nicholls
David Alan Nichollsis an English novelist and screenwriter...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth30 November 1966
emotional thinking stories
I think probably I'm quite sentimental; I like big emotional stories, I like being moved by things, but I think I'm very embarrassed by sentiment. I'm very embarrassed by corniness.
book age
Read a book at the right age and it will stay with you for life.
night romance atmosphere
I read a lot of F. Scott Fitzgerald. I love 'Tender is the Night,' and its atmosphere of doomed romance. He was one of the greatest prose stylists, with a wonderfully clear but lyrical quality.
writing get-better dialogue
If there's anything I'm keen to get better at in my writing, then it's the writing of prose as opposed to the writing of dialogue.
expectations great-expectations kind
I identified with Pip from 'Great Expectations,' especially when I was younger; I had the same kind of gaucheness and uncertainty.
book character ideas
An adaptation leads the cinema-goer to the original to find out what they're missing and if they already know the book, it can still illuminate a theme, a character, an idea.
robots emotion nun
Oh you know me. I have no emotions. I'm a robot. Or a nun. A robot nun.
men actors done
When I was an actor, I worked with lots of men who had a bit of success early on, who were very good looking, who suddenly made a bit of money and who felt no embarrassment - and nor should they have done - about having a good time.
mother years names
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.
children home two
I work three days at home, and two days in the British Library or the London Library, just to get out of the house and hide from the children.
writing made situation
She had reached a turning point. She no longer believed that a situation could be made better by writing a poem about it.
believe sometimes wonder
Sometimes, when it is going badly, she wonders if what she believes to be a love of the written word is really just a fetish for stationary.
life-is conviction ifs
For some time now she has had the conviction that life is about to change if only because it must. . . .
i-love-him men building
I love him, she thought. I'm just not in love with him and also I don't love him. I've tried, I've strained to love him but I can't. I am building a life with a man I don't love, and I don't know what to do about it.