William Nicholson
William Nicholson
William Benedict Nicholson, OBE, FRSLis a British screenwriter, playwright, and novelist who has been nominated twice for an Oscar...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionPlaywright
Date of Birth12 January 1948
matter moments accepted
He accepted what each moment brough him, and never troubled himself with matters that were outside his control.
selfish suffering add
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.
selfish here-i-am people
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.
dream pain laughter
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 enemy needs
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.
lonely fall dark
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.
slave
We are the slaves of slaves
use
Use your power gently.
dies ifs
If you die, I'll die.' 'But is you live, I'll live.' - Bowman and Kestrel, Firesong
book play scripts
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.
drinking wine thinking
The English seem to think drinking wine is like committing adultery, something you do rarely and abroad.
writing years form
When I began to write seriously, 40 years ago now, my chosen form was the novel.
past eight way
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.
attention comfort enough
Why should I be honored? Don't I have enough attention, comfort and power already?