Nick Hornby Quotes

Surely it isn't illegal here to complain about young people these days? How cruel. I had thought it a basic part of human nature, one of the few universally practiced human customs.

I keep very close in touch with the fans - to see what they like. I'm very in touch with my audience; I get older and they get younger, which I think is the ultimate compliment. I think hitchhiking brought a few of them out! Even though all young people have never hitchhiked, all people my age did at one point in their life, they just don't do it now.

Young people are the same as they always were. They are just as ignorant.

The '80s were a really different time for kids.Technology has changed so much of how we stay in touch and keep tabs on people.

I try and take everyone's ideals, common morals, flip them around, make people look at them differently, question them, so that you're not always taking things for granted.

I've had a pretty good lesson in human nature. It's more important to try to surround yourself with people who can give you a little happiness, because you only pass through this life once, Jack. You don't come back for an encore.

I see kids today trying to do the things I did, and it makes me feel like I've come a long way.

All I can do is say I smell a rat. I don't know where it is or what kind of rat it is, but as an artist, I can express how. But I couldn't responsibly stand up and tell people which way to go, because then I'm just as guilty as the people who are telling everybody else what to do and where to go.

When you get as old as I am, you start to realize that you've told most of the good stuff you know to other people anyway.

The cultural influences in our country are like the floo floo bird. I am referring to the peculiar and especial bird who always flew backward. To keep the wind out of its eyes? No. Just because it didn't give a darn where it was going, but just had to see where it had been.

High school. You know, people say, 'I'll never do so-and-so again' - then they do it. So what? Sometimes somebody has crack, and you're looking to stay awake.

THE British are brave people. They can face anything, except reality.

There's just something about that late '80s that suddenly feels like it has something to teach us.

Old people are fond of giving good advice; it consoles them for no longer being capable of setting a bad example.

I've always felt that rock & roll was very, very wholesome.

What this generation was bred to at television's knees was not wisdom, but cynicism.

Few cultures have not produced the idea that in some past era the world ran better than it does now.

Time was when people used to brag about how old they were - and I am old enough to remember it.

Mark Twain is a universe, and he is also a kind of American authority figure. He can say things to America that other people can't say, in a way that can truly be heard.

The whole dating ritual was different when I was a kid. Girls got pinned, not nailed.

I try to make movies that I would want to go see rather than ones I would just want to do as an actor. I want people to have movies full of romance and hope and empowerment, something they can escape into and feel good about. I love happy endings.

You look at that movie [Dude, Where's My Car?] now, and you know exactly when it was made. And that's what kids were like then.

(There is) art that states the problems of society and wakes people up to make changes in their lives or in their communities,...art that offers an alternative, that demonstrates human behavior that can become a model for creativity, cooperation, freedom and playfulness, and...art that in itself provides glimpses of a larger consciousness or reflects upon the inexplicable.