Nick Tosches Quotations

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.

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.

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

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.

Life is a racket. Writing is a racket. Sincerity is a racket. Everything's a racket.

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

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.

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.

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.

I think Elvis Presley will never be solved

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.

I don't have a college degree.

You see, I needed to go to Hell.

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.

The older you get, the more you live with ghosts.