As I get older, the tyranny that football exerts over my life, and therefore over the lives of the people around me, is less reasonable and less attr… - Nick Hornby

I wanted to make my life short, and I was at a party in Toppers' Hose, and the coincidence was too much. It was like a message from God. OK, it was disappointing that all God had to say to me was, like, Jump off a roof, but I didn't blame him. What else was he supposed to tell me?

Self-pity is an ignoble emotion, but we all feel it, and the orthodox critical line that it represents some kind of artistic flaw is dubious, a form of emotional correctness.

Single mothers — bright, attractive, available women, thousands of them all over London — they were the best invention Will had ever heard of.