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"When someone uses the phrase 'the prick one', and you know immediately that this is a synonym for the word 'metaphorically', you are entitled to wonder whether you know the speaker too well. You are even entitled to wonder whether you should know her at all."
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"All our words from loose using have lost their edge."

"Our language now has become quick-moving (in syllables), and may be very supple and nimble, but is rather thin in sound and in sense too often diffuse and vague. the language of our forefathers, especially in verse, was slow, not very nimble, but very sonorous, and was intensely packed and concentrated - or could be in a good poet."

"Where do the words gowhen we have said them?"

"Language is the gateway of the mind and a bridge that connects us to other human beings. Language enables a person to share their clandestine inner world with other human beings and to learn about other people's mysterious world of logical thoughts and poetic sentiments."

"Aye, aye, that's the way wi' thee: thee allays makes a peck o' thy own words out o' a pint o' the Bible's."

"Words are never insufficient to describe any situation. It is the talent to use the words which is the insufficient one!"

"And why does he talk so funny? Doesn't he mean squashed tomatoes?I don't think that they had tomatoes when he comes from, said Bod. And that's just how they talk then."
Explore more quotes by Nick Hornby

"I don't want my books to exclude anyone, but if they have to, then I would rather they excluded the people who feel they are too smart for them!"

"We can't be as good as we'd want to, so the question then becomes, how do we cope with our own badness?"

"Sequels are very rarely a good idea, and in any case, the success of the book changed my relationship with the club in some ways."

"Everything's complicated, even those things that seem flat in their bleakness or sadness."

"And I have to say, books haven't helped much with all this. Because whenever you read anything about love, whenever anyone tries to define it, there's always a state or an abstract noun, and I try to think of it like that. But actually, love is, Well, it's just you. And when you go, it's gone. Nothing abstract about it."

"And what would happen if we never read the classics? There comes a point in life, it seems to me, where you have to decide whether you're a Person of Letters or merely someone who loves books, and I'm beginning to see that the book lovers have more fun."

"I personally find that for domestic purposes, the Trivial Pursuit system works better than Dewey."

"In other words, it's one of those books you thrust on your partner with an incredulous cry of "This is me!"

"Defeated misery is what all sport is about, eventually, if you follow the story for long enough; all sportsmen know this."
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