Nick Tosches Quotes

I always revered people that I thought had an idea and proceeded through with it. I guess I've been that way since the day I called my father and told him I was going to study acting and maybe try to see if I could do well with that, and he told me: "Don't do that. You don't want to do that, that's just dream stuff. Get a legitimate job and move forward."

To be a lone filmmaker thousands of miles from home with nobody believing in me, that seems romantic.

When I was a child, writing was the worst possible choice of a career in my family.

People recommended that I didn't sing at the school as a jazz major. So I sang and produced on my own time, but I didn't have a lot of support. I just did it anyway.

My parents’ biggest thing was that they just wanted me to graduate high school and go to college. They couldn’t fathom me acting for the rest of my life.

My parents were horrified when I told them I wanted to be an author.

I once asked my father what he wanted me to be. To my horror, he said, 'sociologist.'

My parents would have loved it if my brother or I had become a doctor or lawyer.

He didn't want me to become a musician, he wanted me to be a doctor, because he said singing was too hard.

After being Turned Down by numerous Publishers, he had decided to write for Posterity.

I was already in a band, and the teachers called my mum in and said: 'Abbey's so clever, it's a total waste if she follows her dream'. But I never wanted to do a job I didn't love, and I'd always wanted to be a model or an actress or a singer.

My dad is a bank president and my mom was an accountant and they didn't think that seeking the life of a freelance writer was very practical, you see. Of course, I was just as determined to do it.

I always knew I'd keep at it with the plodding doggedness that I used to master lump-less gravy and wriggle out of fitness classes; I always knew I'd get a zillion rejection slips. I figured I'd write part time while working various full-time office jobs, and maybe, maybe in my 50s, I'd be able to quit and try writing full time.

Your parents would not be happy if you came home and said you wanted to grow up to be a chef or a rock star.

My mother wanted to be a teacher when she was young, and my father didn't approve of it, so she fought very hard to become one. And she did it. So when I said I wanted to become an actress, my mother was very supportive. She always said to me, 'There's no such thing as 'can't.'

I've been grinding at music for over a decade now. Since I was 18, I decided that this is what I wanted to do. It's not an easy thing. When you start getting 25, 26, people are like, 'Oh you're a musician huh? That's what you're gonna do? When are you going to get a real job?' I never gave up.

Dad and mom would have preferred that I be a doctor, a lawyer, a scientist, or a great humanitarian.

The first record I made when I was 17. Labels merged and plans didn't work out, but plans never work out as planned. But I never stopped making music. I never had a backup plan. I never thought, 'Maybe I should just write, or maybe I should...' I just kept going.

I think our families or parents were trying to do best by us by telling us, 'Do what you love.' On an existential level, they might have done their best by us, but I think, in terms of the reality principle, maybe less so.

A lot of people considered my career as an artist largely over. Two albums got shelved. But I've made music since I was a little kid, and for the majority of that time, I wasn't paid for it. So I will always be making it.

I've always liked to write, but I never thought I could make a career out of it.

Both of my parents were journalists, and my rebellion, such as it was, was to become a fiction writer.

After kids leave the house, they can decide to do whatever they want, but while they're under my roof, they're going to be lawyers or writers or something, something important, anything except actors.

My father wanted to be an actor, dreamed about being an actor, but he gave it up because my mom and his family told him, "You're never going to make it; it's too tough out there."

The truth is, my father stopped bothering me after Stigmata, because I got to play a priest. That fulfilled his dream. The cop thing was a little overdone to him because my brother was already a police officer.