Quotes from One Day

“This is where it all begins. Everything starts here, today.”
― David Nicholls, quote from One Day

“What are you going to do with your life?" In one way or another it seemed that people had been asking her this forever; teachers, her parents, friends at three in the morning, but the question had never seemed this pressing and still she was no nearer an answer... "Live each day as if it's your last', that was the conventional advice, but really, who had the energy for that? What if it rained or you felt a bit glandy? It just wasn't practical. Better by far to be good and courageous and bold and to make difference. Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you. Cherish your friends, stay true to your principles, live passionately and fully and well. Experience new things. Love and be loved, if you ever get the chance.”
― David Nicholls, quote from One Day

“Just kidding' was exactly what people wrote when they meant every word.”
― David Nicholls, quote from One Day

“You're gorgeous, you old hag, and if I could give you just one gift ever for the rest of your life it would be this. Confidence. It would be the gift of confidence. Either that or a scented candle”
― David Nicholls, quote from One Day

“You can live your whole life not realizing that what you're looking for is right in front of you.”
― David Nicholls, quote from One Day

“Whatever happens tomorrow, we had today; and I'll always remember it”
― David Nicholls, quote from One Day

“Live each day as if it's your last', that was the conventional advice, but really, who had the energy for that? What if it rained or you felt a bit glandy? It just wasn't practical. Better by far to simply try and be good and courageous and bold and to make a difference. Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you. Go out there with your passion and your electric typewriter and work hard at...something. Change lives through art maybe. Cherish your friends, stay true to your principles, live passionately and fully and well. Experience new things. Love and be loved, if you ever get the chance.”
― David Nicholls, quote from One Day

“Can I say something?'
'Go on'
'I'm a little drunk'
'Me too. That's okay.'
'Just....I missed you, you know.'
'I missed you too.'
'But so, so much, Dexter. There were so many things I wanted to talk to you about, and you weren't there-'
'same here.'
'I tell you what it is. It's.....When I didn't see you, I thought about you every day, I mean EVERY DAY in some way or another-'
'same here.'
'-Even if it was just "I wish Dexter could see this" or "Where's Dexter now?" or "Christ that Dexter, what an idiot", you know what I mean, and seeing you today, well, I thought I'd got you back - my BEST friend. And now all this, the wedding, the baby- I'm so happy for you, Dex, but it feels like I've lost you again.'-

-'You know what happens you have a family, your responsibilities change, you lose touch with people'
'It won't be like that, I promise.'
'Do you?'
'Absolutely'
'You swear? No more disappearing?'
'I won't if you won't.'
Their lips touched now, mouths pursed tight, their eyes open, both of them stock still. The moment held, a kind of glorious confusion.”
― David Nicholls, quote from One Day

“He wanted to live life in such a way that if a photograph were taken at random, it would be a cool photograph.”
― David Nicholls, quote from One Day

“Dexter, I love you so much. So, so much, and I probably always will. I just don't like you anymore. I'm sorry.”
― David Nicholls, quote from One Day

“If you have to keep a secret it's because you shouldn't be doing it in the first place.”
― David Nicholls, quote from One Day

“You know what I can't understand? You have all these people telling you all the time how great you are, smart and funny and talented and all that, I mean endlessly, I've been telling you for years. So why don't you believe it? why do you think people say that stuff, Em? Do you think it's a conspiracy, people secretly ganging up to be nice about you?”
― David Nicholls, quote from One Day

“So - whatever happened to you?'
'Life. Life happened.”
― David Nicholls, quote from One Day

“And then some days you wake up and everything's perfect.”
― David Nicholls, quote from One Day

“She drinks pints of coffee and writes little observations and ideas for stories with her best fountain pen on the linen-white pages of expensive notebooks. Sometimes, when it's going badly, she wonders if what she believes to be a love of the written word is really just a fetish for stationery.”
― David Nicholls, quote from One Day

“I'm not the consolation prize, Dex. I'm not something you resort to. I happen to think I'm worth more than that.”
― David Nicholls, quote from One Day

“You feel a little bit lost right now about what to do with your life, a bit rudderless and oarless and aimless but that’s okay… That’s alright because we’re all meant to be like that at twenty-four.”
― David Nicholls, quote from One Day

“This is me.’" He handed her the precious scrap of paper. ‘Call me or I’ll call you, but one of us will call, yes? What I mean is it’s not a competition. You don’t lose if you phone first.”
― David Nicholls, quote from One Day

“Oh you know me. I have no emotions. I'm a robot. Or a nun. A robot nun.”
― David Nicholls, quote from One Day

“In eight years not a day has gone by when she hasn’t thought of him. She misses him and she wants him back. I want my best friend back, she thinks, because without him nothing is good and nothing is right.”
― David Nicholls, quote from One Day

“And then she frowned, and shook her head, then put her arms around him once more, pressing her face into his shoulder, making a noise that sounded almost like rage.
'What's up?' he asked.
'Nothing. Oh, nothing. Just...' She looked up at him. 'I thought I'd finally got rid of you.'
'I don't think you can.' he said”
― David Nicholls, quote from One Day

“Occasionally, very occasionally, say at four o’clock in the afternoon on a wet Sunday, she feels panic-stricken and almost breathless with loneliness. Once or twice she has been known to pick up the phone to check that it isn’t broken. Sometimes she thinks how nice it would be to be woken by a call in the night: ‘get in a taxi now’ or ‘I need to see you, we need to talk’. But at the best of times she feels like a character in a Muriel Spark novel – independent, bookish, sharp-minded, secretly romantic.”
― David Nicholls, quote from One Day

“And of course there is always joy in witnessing the joy of others.”
― David Nicholls, quote from One Day

“Their friendship was like a wilted bunch of flowers that she insisted on topping up with water. Why not let it die instead?”
― David Nicholls, quote from One Day

“Cherish your friends, stay true to your principles, live passionately and fully and well. Experience new things. Love and be loved, if you ever get the chance.”
― David Nicholls, quote from One Day

“Call me sentimental, but there's no-one in the world that I'd like to see get dysentery more than you”
― David Nicholls, quote from One Day

“It would be inappropiate, undignified, at 38, to conduct friendships or love affairs with the ardour or intensity of a 22 year old. Falling in love like that? Writing poetry? Crying at pop songs? Dragging people into photobooths? Taking a whole day to make a compilation tape? Asking people if they wanted to share your bed, just for company? If you quoted Bob Dylan or TS Eliot or, god forbid, Brecht at someone these days they would smile politely and step quietly backwards, and who would blame them? Ridiculous, at 38, to expect a song or book or film to change your life.”
― David Nicholls, quote from One Day

“Better by far to be good and courageous and bold and to make difference. Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you.”
― David Nicholls, quote from One Day

“If you're my friend I should be able to talk to you but I can't, and if I can't talk to you, well, what is the point of you? Of us?”
― David Nicholls, quote from One Day

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Popular quotes

“Men often react to women’s words—speaking and writing—as if they were acts of violence; sometimes men react to women’s words with violence. So we lower our voices. Women whisper. Women apologize. Women shut up. Women trivialize what we know. Women shrink. Women pull back. Most women have experienced enough dominance from men—control, violence, insult, contempt—that no threat seems empty.”
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“Istanbul is the only city in the entire world built on two separate continents. The Bosporus Straits separate the two parts. Our European side alone has a greater population than the entire country of Belgium, but for some reason Europeans still look upon us as Asians.”               Ever the scholar, Elijah immediately countered, “Pay no attention to them. The so-called ‘Asians’ included people like Moses, the prophet Isaiah, and Jesus. And they are but a minuscule sample of the many ‘Asians’ who made it in life. After all, they wrote the greatest bestselling book of all times - the Bible.”
― Nathan Erez, quote from The Kabbalistic Murder Code

“Sometimes you can get a shark to eat itself if you fill the water with enough blood.”
― Shane Kuhn, quote from The Intern's Handbook

“I’d rather spend the rest of my life without ever seeing you again,” he says, “than watch them destroy you because of me.” His hand slips to the back of my neck, skimming over my Mark, and stops in my hair. He leans down and kisses my forehead. I long to reach up, close my fingers over his arm, keep him here. He pulls away but not by much. His mouth lingers on my forehead and then, as if with an effort, he straightens.
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― Sangu Mandanna, quote from The Lost Girl

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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.