Nick Tosches Quotes

Most writers are drawn to what is unknown, rather than what is clear in any tale.

I write for the same reason I read: to find out what's going to happen.

I don't write about things that I have the answers to or things that are very close to home. It just wouldn't be any adventure. It wouldn't have any vitality.

When I was growing up, I dreamed about becoming a cowgirl, a detective, a spy, a great actress, or a ballerina. Not a dentist, like my father, or a homemaker, like my mother - and certainly not a writer, although I always loved to read.

I can create countries just as I can create the actions of my characters. That is why a lot of travel seems to me a waste of time.

Well, you know, writers just suck up new experiences - we're just like the vacuum cleaners of newness.

Nothing much interested me other than playing with language and telling stories and doing something with the wonders of the world around me.

I was born to travel and write verse.

As long as there are things to wonder about, there are stories to be written about them. That makes me happy, because writing about things seems to be my thing.

The fantasy that appeals most to people is the kind that's rooted thoroughly in somebody looking around a corner and thinking, 'What if I wandered into this writer's people here?' If you've done your job and made your people and your settings well enough, that adds an extra dimension that you can't buy.

Part of the reasons I have lived the life I have is because I wanted to have an adventurous life. But my best adventures are more literary than political.

I'm always looking for the potential mystery in everything; I can't imagine writing about anything else.

I know what it's like to be genuinely intrigued and compelled by a story and to have a sense that there's an adventure to be had and a film to be conjured.

I look for stories everywhere.

Wherever the good stories are, I'm trying to place myself there.

I'm interested in stories. I think I'm a bit of a pathfinder.

The old adage is, 'Write what you know.' But if you only do that, your work becomes claustrophobic. I say, 'Write what you want to know.'

I've always really enjoyed writing different things because I get bored very easily.

I'm writing for my ideal reader, for somebody who's willing to take the time, who's willing to get lost in a new world, who's willing to do their part. But then I have to do my part and give them a sound and a voice that they believe in enough to keep going.

What I like about writing a stand alone novel is you're starting with a fresh world and fresh characters. Part of what I love about writing is that journey of discovery where it's all new to me as well.

I had this desire to see the world. I couldn't see any of it, but I saw it in my imagination, and that's why I always read books, and I could go to Mars or Middle Earth or the Hyborian age.

I want kids to think that reading can be just as much fun and more so than TV or video games or whatever else they do. I think any other kind of message or morals that I might teach is secondary to first just enjoying a book.

There is a plethora of topics to explore. I sometimes think I may never live long enough to explore all of the unique story lines I have either in my head or waiting in my computer file.

I've always liked the idea that writing is a form of travel. And I started my writing career as a mystery novelist for adults.

Dinosaurs are the jumper cables to the human mind. Kids can't curb their enthusiasm when they're in a hall of dinosaurs and mammoths and mammoth hunters and trilobites and giant fish that could chomp up a shark. These natural objects in motion and context make kids want to read; you can't stop them from reading and thinking.