Tosches Nick Quotes & Sayings

It is always easier to see in another what we are uncomfortable with in ourselves. — Nick Tosches

I have been aware for many years that most people do not think about aging in the same way that they think about cancer, or diabetes, or heart disease. They are strongly in favor of the absolute elimination of such diseases as soon as possible, but the idea of eliminating aging - maintaining truly youthful physical and mental function indefinitely - evokes an avalanche of fears and reservations. Yet, in the sense that matters most, aging is just like smoking: It's really bad for you. — Aubrey De Grey

As a young man, I felt a need to communicate with somebody or something, but it seemed in my own particular environment that that wasn't an option. On the other hand, I probably lacked the courage to do so, even if it was an option. — Nick Tosches

America was a land of machines, and it was through machines, the miraculous handmaidens of mob culture, that the muses of illiteracy brought America her voice and vision during the years of the immigrants' waves. Centuries ago, movable type had given literacy to the common man. Now, through these wondrous newer machines, he would give it back. — Nick Tosches

Mortality applies to every aspect of life. The fear of death is the driving fear of life. — Nick Tosches

I believe in the power of origins, a belief that, as Ecclesiastes put it, 'that wich is done is that wich shall be done: and there is no new thing under de sun'; that we claim as originality and discovery are nothing but the airs and delusios of our innocence, ignorance, and arrogance: that whatever is said was said better - more powerfully, beautifully, and purely, long ago — Nick Tosches

It is typical, in America, that a person's hometown is not the place where he is living now but is the place he left behind. — Margaret Mead

You see, I needed to go to Hell. — Nick Tosches

When I was young, I kept trying to read 'Moby-Dick', and I couldn't get that far into it. And I kept thinking, 'Well, man, if I can't read the great American novel, I could never be a writer.' And this bothered me a great deal. — Nick Tosches

To me, music's something I can dance to or listen to. To write about it is always more of what the music represents, or what it reflects. Like an ideal song, to me, is a song that you can dance to, that summons up some darker and greater mystery. — Nick Tosches

Whatever their story, Eve was breathing easy now - for the moment forgetful, vulnerable, at peace. It's a purposeful irony of life, I suppose, that we never get to see ourselves in that state. We can only pay witness to our waking reflection, which to one degree or another is always fretting or afraid. Maybe that's why young parents find it so beguiling to spy on their children when they're fast asleep. — Amor Towles

The older you get, the more you live with ghosts. — Nick Tosches

Exceptional men do not hold their experiences to be out of the ordinary or of interest to anyone else. Unlike the trodden fungus-men, they are not so ignorantly and presumptuously self-absorbed. They are nobody and they know it. They shun notice. They are exceedingly rare. — Nick Tosches

I think Elvis Presley will never be solved — Nick Tosches

I wanted to be alone, not forgotten. — Nick Tosches

An extraordinary writer ... It is the vastness of Nick Tosches' heart that makes it possible to reveal the darkness. — Hubert Selby Jr.

Joe Bonomo has written a fine book: a book not only about a band or times passed, but also about the rare virtue of endurance. — Nick Tosches

For thousands of years, there have been lies about being gay or not being gay. If you know they're lies, you're free. — Don Miguel Ruiz

The things I wanted to be when I was a kid were an archeologist, because of dinosaur bones; a garbage man, because they got to ride on the side of the trucks; and a writer. — Nick Tosches

I don't have a college degree. — Nick Tosches

Never let me lose you, Ink. Never let me screw this up. And never think for one moment that I don't love you, need you or want you with me. — Dawn Metcalf

I often wonder if I had the complete freedom to not have to write, if I would write. That's the one mystery that I hope I get to experience. — Nick Tosches

For years, I never really pondered how I came to be a writer from where I came from. — Nick Tosches

Steiner has here transformed the vaporous conceptions of his life, the vapors of what never was and never will be, from their aeriform state to a fine and ethereal substantiality. My Unwritten Books is a gathering of shades, an elegant and eloquent gathering of mind, feeling, and autumnal passion. ( ... ) And that is the lovely irony of this unique little book. None of these unwritten books should have been written. They are better here, as they are, untamed and errant phantoms of a brilliance whose emanations no one mortal lifetime could ever accommodate in full. — Nick Tosches

Life is a racket. Writing is a racket. Sincerity is a racket. Everything's a racket. — Nick Tosches

Johnny Depp is, to me, a rare kindred spirit with like sensibilities, who has escaped the beast. He's probably one of the few people that have survived Los Angeles as a human being. — Nick Tosches

And, of course, that is what all of this is - all of this: the one song, ever changing, ever reincarnated, that speaks somehow from and to and for that which is ineffable within us and without us, that is both prayer and deliverance, folly and wisdom, that inspires us to dance or smile or simply to go on, senselessly, incomprehensibly, beatifically, in the face of mortality and the truth that our lives are more ill-writ, ill-rhymed and fleeting than any song, except perhaps those songs - that song, endlesly reincarnated - born of that truth, be it the moon and June of that truth, or the wordless blue moan, or the rotgut or the elegant poetry of it. That nameless black-hulled ship of Ulysses, that long black train, that Terraplane, that mystery train, that Rocket '88', that Buick 6 - same journey, same miracle, same end and endlessness. — Nick Tosches

Normal relationships? No. I'm not. I'm into honest relationships. — J.T. Geissinger

They all fear death, but they want to hurry and cast away the time remaining between now and the grave. 'I can't wait till this day's over,' they say. 'I wish this week would end,' they say. 'I can't wait until next month,' they say. All of life they will ever know lies in the present breath that they are granted. But they, who would think us crazy for throwing away socks, throw away everything in their rush to obliterate their lives and be devoured all the sooner by their greatest fear. The end and its grave-mold. Their beginning is their end: a brief, nervous twitch of panic and dread, and nothing more. — Nick Tosches