Welcome to the website of Jonathan Nicholas, Author.

"Writing is marvellously private, if you want it to be; it is absolute discipline,drudgery,and joy. It is observation,words,economy,truth,technique and passion..."  Dirk Bogarde, 28th March 1993

" The more written, the more seems to remain to be written; and the night cometh. I realise that these hopes and plans,except possibly to the extent of a volume or two,must remain unfulfilled..."                                               

Thomas Hardy

"I lingered around them,under that benign sky; watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells,listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth."

Emily Bronte, 'Wuthering Heights'

"A fond kiss,and then we sever. But to see her was to love her. Love but her, and love  forever. Had we never loved so kindly, had we never loved so blindly, never met - or never parted, we had never been broken-hearted."    

 Robert Burns

" The ice in my whiskey chinks, almost convincing me with the serenity of its delicate sound that there is nothing for me to do, or nothing which has to be done."

Dirk Bogarde

"...her smimmed milk pallor etched with a tracery of bluish-purple veins;the toenails sticking out of her flat navy sandals are ridged like limpet shells,the skin of the heels is cracked like old cheese."

Jane Shilling, 'The Stranger in the Mirror'

"...with a light American accent and a strikingly ambivalent alloy of diffidence with determination - sometimes seeming anxious to defer; then unexpectedly firm,even with a hint of imperiousness."

Matthew Parris

"...threads of memory - tumbled into a mixed ball of silks."

Dirk Bogarde

"I walk up to my square;sunlight freckling through the plane trees.But no dogs leaping an idiot welcome,no scent of freshly cut hay,no scuttering lizards on stone walls. No voice from the terrace calling: 'Were the London papers in yet?'  Emptiness sings. Perfectly all right. No problem. How the hell did I get here?"

Dirk Bogarde, 30th September 1990.

"But I have found that I still possess the will to write, as well as the indispensible thing for any writer, the avid need to read."

Christopher Hitchens, 'Hitch-22'.

"I think it is braver to hope. It's a risk,having faith,yes. You may say, I refuse to believe what I cannot test. So be it. But the big decisions in life are like that. You can never know in advance the facts that would make your decision the right one under the circumstances. That applies to the decision to marry, to have a child, to start a business, or to write a symphony..."

Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sachs, 'The Spectator', 2nd July 2011.