The Nick Hornby part of my psyche

This is one of my favorite bits from High Fidelity by Nick Hornby. It captures the spirit of what I think about when people ask me what sort of woman I am looking for:

Five women who don't live on my street, as far as I know, but would be very welcome if they ever decided to move into the area: the Holly Hunter of Broadcast News; the Meg Ryan of Sleepless in Seattle; a woman doctor I saw on the telly once, who had lots of long frizzy hair and carved up a Tory MP in a debate about embryos, although I don't know her name and I've never been able to find a pinup of her; Katherine Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story; Valerie Harper in the TV series Rhoda. These are women who talk back, women with a mind of their own, women with snap and crackle and pop...but they are also women who seem to need the love of a good man. I could rescue them. I could redeem them. They could make me laugh, and I could make them laugh, maybe, on a good day, and we could stay in and watch one of their films or TV programs or embryo debates on video and adopt disadvantaged children together and the whole family could play soccer in Central Park.

I think I love Hornby's writing so much because he understands how his hobbies (read: obsessions) fit into the scheme of the would-be women in his life.