I have to start my real life soon, before I die of boredom and frustration. — William Boyd Before i die Copy Share Image
“I may be a shit writer,’ I remember him saying once, ‘but I’m richer than any of the good ones.” — William Boyd Money Copy Share Image
“Everything in life is a bit odd, when you come to think of it.” — William Boyd Life Copy Share Image
“Are our lives just the aggregate of the lies we've told? ('Lives' - the 'v' is silent.)” — William Boyd Lies Copy Share Image
“what massive turbulence of emotion she hid beneath a surface of total calm and placidity.” — William Boyd Heart Copy Share Image
My novels are often about people who are in love or attracted to each other. — William Boyd Copy Share Image
“It amazes me what compromises we happily live with. We limp along, patching up, improvising.” — William Boyd Compromise Copy Share Image
“This was an adventure, I told myself, an intriguing quest, and one that I would regret not seeing through at least a… — William Boyd Adventure Copy Share Image
“Curious how these early linguistic abilities are so fragile, how unthinkingly and easily the brain lets them go.” — William Boyd Language Copy Share Image
“There were three PROs looking after us – a measure of how the army and the mass media were now coexisting and… — William Boyd Army Copy Share Image
“As I write this I feel that draining hollowing helplessness that genuine love for another person produces in you. It's at these… — William Boyd Genuine love Copy Share Image
When you experience bereavement at a youngish age, you suddenly realise that life is unjust and unfair, that bad things will happen,… — William Boyd Age Copy Share Image
“Then, as I stood in that English garden on the soft early summer night, I felt a surge of pure well-being engulf… — William Boyd Happiness Copy Share Image
Do we change every time we have a new encounter? Are we endlessly mutable? I think these are fascinating questions: it's a… — William Boyd Change Copy Share Image
We never love anyone. Not really. We only love our idea of another person. It is some conception of our own that… — William Boyd Facts Copy Share Image
With film, you have very limited tools to convey subjectivity - voiceover, the camera's point of view, good acting - but even… — William Boyd Acting Copy Share Image
“So I found myself asking the question: what is the opposite of a mistake? And I realised there wasn’t a word, in… — William Boyd Best intentions Copy Share Image
“Reasonable behavior was the last thing you wanted. You felt as if the resolution of human problems demanded passion and brute unreason,… — William Boyd Habits Copy Share Image
At a time when there's younger writers starting up and it's inevitable that you're becoming less fashionable, at a time when the… — William Boyd Copy Share Image
“A warm sunny evening, the plash and gurgle of the waves in the rock pools, the rush of the cold gin. I… — William Boyd Copy Share Image
Even though I've been an avid consumer of contemporary music since my early teens, the world of rock music has always been… — William Boyd Copy Share Image
What's important to me is that all of my books are in print - and, in a way, that becomes the challenge,… — William Boyd Copy Share Image
“I write - poignantly, in the most heartfelt way - about how I miss her and how I detest my life in… — William Boyd Frustration Copy Share Image
“I say to myself, at last you are in tune with the universe.” — William Boyd Acceptance Copy Share Image
“But you can be too intelligent, I said. Sometimes it's not an asset it's a curse.” — William Boyd Curse Copy Share Image
The last thing we ever learn about ourselves is our effect. — William Boyd Education Copy Share Image
I have this lock of hair that keeps falling across my forehead. It drives me mad. — William Boyd Copy Share Image
Dignity was the first quality to be abandoned when the heart took over the running of human affairs. — William Boyd Copy Share Image
“I felt truly happy for the first time in years. Such moments should be logged and noted.” — William Boyd Copy Share Image
“I don’t have many photographs of myself – a trait common to most professional photographers” — William Boyd Photographers Copy Share Image
“Hot crumpets with butter and jam - what could be more ambrosial?” — William Boyd Crumpets Copy Share Image
“We all possess, like it or not, the people we know, and are possessed by them in turn.” — William Boyd Copy Share Image
“It terrifies me, the fragility of these moments in our lives.” — William Boyd Fragility Copy Share Image
