Memorable Quotes from High Fidelity

Nick Hornby is one of my favorite authors. Few people write books that are this funny that you really can relate to - somehow in particular I relate to the male characters (not that I am a balding man in my 40s - but in any case...). Last night I watched the movie version of High Fidelity (for the gazillionth time...) from 2000. It's a great film, despite the fact that I normally HATE Jack Black (but in this film he's actually good as he's SUPPOSED to be a bit annoying) AND it always annoys me that they decided to film it in the US, when the book is set in in the UK (but I must admit that John Cusack puts in a pretty darn good performance here, so all forgiven).

Ok, but one thing that's great about the movie are all the jawdropping, laugh 'till you crack dialouges - and I have included some of my favorite quotes (by the way, if you haven't seen this movie or read the book - shame on you! Get it immediately on Amazon.co.uk):

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Barry: We're no longer called Sonic Death Monkey. We're on the verge of becoming Kathleen Turner Overdrive, but just for tonight, we are Barry Jive and his Uptown Five.

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Rob: Liking both Marvin Gaye and Art Garfunkel is like supporting both the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Laura: No, it's really not, Rob. You know why? Because Marvin Gaye and Art Garfunkel make pop records.
Rob: Made. Made. Marvin Gaye is dead. His father shot him.

--
Rob: Should I bolt every time I get that feeling in my gut when I meet someone new? Well, I've been listening to my gut since I was 14 years old, and frankly speaking, I've come to the conclusion that my guts have shit for brains.

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Rob: What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?

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Barry: Holy shite. What the fuck is that?
Dick: It's the new Belle and Sebastian...
Rob: It's a record we've been listening to and enjoying, Barry.
Barry: Well, that's unfortunate, because it sucks ass.

--
Barry: I wanna date a musician.
Rob Gordon: I wanna live with a musician. She'd write songs at home and ask me what I thought of them, and maybe even include one of our little private jokes in the liner notes.
Barry: Maybe a little picture of me in the liner notes.
Dick: Just in the background somewhere.

--
Dick: I guess it looks as if you're reorganizing your records. What is this though? Chronological?
Rob: No...
Dick: Not alphabetical...
Rob: Nope...
Dick: What?
Rob: Autobiographical.
Dick: No fucking way.

--
Rob: She's a single. I'm a single. I'm a single man talking to an attractive single woman who may or may not have just confessed to feelings of sexual frustration. Oh my God...

--
Customer: Hi, do you have the song "I Just Called To Say I Love You?" It's for my daughter's birthday.
Barry: Yea we have it.
Customer: Great great... Well, can I have it?
Barry: No, you can't.
Customer: Why not?!
Barry: Beacause it's sentimental tacky crap that's why. Do we look like a store that sells "I Just Called to Say I Love You"? Go to the mall!
Customer: What's your problem?!
Barry: Do you even know your daughter? There's no way she likes that song! Oh oh oh wait! Is she in a coma?
--
Rob: ...I agreed that what really matters is what you like, not what you are like... Books, records, films -- these things matter. Call me shallow but it's the damn truth, and by this measure I was having one of the best dates of my life.

...and that's it for now, folks!

NOTE: Someone asked me why the book is called "High Fidelity" - and I think it's due to the fact that the characters are music-freaks or audiophiles. High fidelity reproduction as we know, or "hi-fi", is a quality standard that means the reproduction of sound or images is very faithful to the original. High fidelity aims to achieve minimal or unnoticeable amounts of noise and distortion. Some more geeky facts: The term high fidelity tends to be applied to any reasonable-quality home-music system, though some believe that a higher standard than this was intended, and in 1973, the German Deutsches Institut für Normung (DIN) standard DIN 45500 laid down minimum requirements for measurements of frequency response, distortion, noise and other defects and gained some recognition in hi-fi magazines.