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" Dylan's 'Chronicles' is easily the best rock n' roll memoir ever written, as far as I'm concerned. There aren't many stories in there, but if you want to know where an artist came from and why he thinks the way he does, then that's the one. "

Nick Hornby

Best

Artist

Know

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" I couldn't imagine a list of 10 records that didn't contain a punk record - that didn't contain a Clash record. "

" At a crude estimate, I must have played 'Thunder Road' 1,500 times. "

" 'An Education' was a complicated piece of work because it came from a tiny essay, so it took me a while to find the story I wanted to tell and the characters I wanted to tell it about. That really only emerged after four or five drafts. "

Nick Hornby

Find

Education

" I spent as much time watching telly and films when I was a kid as I did lying around reading books. I think it's crazy that writers are only allowed to say that certain books have influenced them. "

" I like writing about popular culture. It helps to place people. I think you can be really, really accurate if you know enough about it, and place people precisely. "

" I think the moment you're writing about somebody who's not exactly you, then the challenge is all equal. "

" It takes big business a couple of decades to work out how best to exploit a cultural form; once that has happened, 'that high-low fork in the road' is unavoidable, and the middle way begins to look impossibly daunting. "

" You can't really ask for anything more than to be working for your entire life - and to be doing something that some people respond to. "

" It takes me two to three years to write a novel. A screenplay is 100 pages and takes five years. "

Nick Hornby

Write

Three

" I'm a reader for lots of reasons. On the whole, I tend to hang out with readers, and I'm scared they wouldn't want to hang out with me if I stopped. "

Nick Hornby

Hang

Out

" I'm quite gloomy. I just am one of those people, vaguely lugubrious. "

" I've always been able to enjoy aspects of my life. "

" I wasted the 1980s. I wasted every minute at Cambridge talking to people who knew more about music than I did. "

Nick Hornby

Talking

People

" My computer is littered with abandoned projects. "

" The whole point of reading is that the writer is speaking to you, and if you're not listening, you're not going to have any fun reading. "

" It wasn't until 1963 that you would really want to listen to any kind of English music. "

" All the Oscars stuff for 'An Education' was incredibly exciting, especially because it was such an underdog project - no one would give us the money for it, and we all nearly gave up because it wasn't getting anywhere, then suddenly a breakthrough and this really lovely film, which then took on a life of its own. "

" The natural state of the football fan is bitter disappointment, no matter what the score. "

" The most important thing for me is realism. I don't like writing which does somersaults on the page, and I'm no great fan of the hard work literary novel. "

Nick Hornby

Writing

Work

" I think that every book that's in a bookstore should entertain in some way. "

" I have boys, and boys are particularly resistant to reading books. I had some success recently with Sherman Alexie's great young adult novel 'The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part-Time Indian.' I told my son it was highly inappropriate for him and one of the most banned books in America. That got his attention, and he raced through it. "

" My relationships are fairly stable. "

" We need a romantic illusion to embark on relationships in the first place. After that, they survive or fail for other, more practical reasons. "

" Whether I am writing about a man or woman makes no difference in terms of difficulty. "

" I write slowly. I can't move on until I've got a paragraph right. "

" I can remember my father gave me a huge history of football for my 12th birthday - I used to read that a lot. I can remember thinking it was cool that something I was interested in even had a history. Most things I loved didn't. "

Nick Hornby

Father

History

" I used to be a teacher, and I know how difficult it is to strike a balance between focused conversation and an atmosphere which prevents creativity and thought. "

" I think, always, with a new book, I get nervous. I think mostly it is because work is really important to me, and a book doing well is important because it buys you another one. Not because of the money but if you keep doing interesting work, work that people like, they will want you to do more, and offers that are interesting come in. "

Nick Hornby

Money

Book

" It's a great relief that you're not as bad a parent as you thought you were. "

" If it's not gripping you, you are reading the wrong book. "