Nick Hornby

Youth is a quality not unlike health: it's found in greater abundance among the young, but we all need access to it.

I have the same interests as women. Well, apart from football and music, obviously. I've always had as many female friends as male ones. The novels I read as a young man were all by women writers, and when I started writing, I wanted to set my books inside the home.

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

Words don't come very easily to me. Which, given my profession, is a worrying impediment.

I applied for a job on 'Melody Maker' once.

If you can get every kid to have found a book that he or she loves, then you've done a great job.

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.

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

The Oscars are like a political campaign. You have to have the right candidates, and the people in Hollywood know what they are.

I would like to have a go at TV. I think, especially when you have kids, that you spend a lot of time watching telly, and you think, 'How come I'm not doing that?'

I only read the very best music books. Donald Fagan's memoir 'Eminent Hipsters' is great. Bob Dylan's memoir 'Chronicles' and Patty Smith's 'Just Kids' are both incredible.

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