William Nicholson Quotations

Madly, futilely, I wrote novel after novel, eight in all, that failed to find a publisher. I persisted because for me the novel was the supreme literary form - not just one among many, not a relic of the past, but the way we communicate to one another the subtlest truths about this business of living.

Everyone deserves to be the hero of a novel.

A well-off plastic surgeon can suffer just as much as an Irish lad who has been abused or whatever.

There are dozens of great American writers who write about the family.

There is this notion that the lives of the comfortable-off middle class don't merit being treated seriously and with compassion.

When I began to write seriously, 40 years ago now, my chosen form was the novel.

Why should I be honored? Don't I have enough attention, comfort and power already?

My study is a converted garage which is largely lined with bookshelves and cardboard boxes filled with manuscripts of my film scripts, plays and books.

God creates us free, free to be selfish, but He adds a mechanism that will penetrate our selfishness and wake us up to the presence of others in this world, and that mechanism is called suffering.

Here I am going to say something which may come as a bit of a shock. God doesn't necessarily want us to be happy. He wants us to be lovable. Worthy of love. Able to be loved by Him. We don't start off being all that lovable, if we're honest. What makes people hard to love? Isn't it what is commonly called selfishness? Selfish people are hard to love because so little love comes out of them.

To put it another way, pain is God's megaphone to rouse a deaf world. Why must it be pain? Why can't he rouse us more gently, with violins or laughter? Because the dream from which we must be wakened, is the dream that all is well.

Self-sufficiency is the enemy of salvation. If you are self-sufficient, you have no need of God. If you have no need of God, you do not seek Him. If you do not seek Him, you will not find Him.

He accepted what each moment brough him, and never troubled himself with matters that were outside his control.

All the fear in the world, and the violence that comes from the fear, and the hatred that comes from the violence, and the lonliness that comes from the hatred. All the unhappiness, all the cruelty, it gathers like clouds in the air, and grows dark and cold and heavy, and falls like grey snow in thick layers over the land. Then the world is muffled and numb, and no one can hear each other or feel each other. Think how sad and lonely that must be.

We are the slaves of slaves

Use your power gently.

If you die, I'll die.' 'But is you live, I'll live.' - Bowman and Kestrel, Firesong

The English seem to think drinking wine is like committing adultery, something you do rarely and abroad.

We write to know we are not alone

We read to know we're not alone.

I am as I am. The world is as it is. Whether I am content with that has very little to do with it.

Today begins my walk with you. Where you go, I go. Where you stay, I stay. When you sleep, I will sleep. When you rise, I will rise. I will pass my days within the sound of your voice, and my nights within the reach of your hand. And none shall come between us. - Manth Vow

I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time- waking and sleeping. It doesn't change God- it changes me.

Experience is a brutal teacher, but you learn fast.

We read to know that we are not alone.