Obviously, I believe that to pursue the American Dream is not only futile but self-destructive because ultimately it destroys everything and everyone involved with it. By definition it must, because it nurtures everything except those things that are important: integrity, ethics, truth, our very heart and soul. Why? The reason is simple: because Life/life is giving, not getting.

An extraordinary writer....It is the vastness of Nick Tosches’ heart that makes it possible to reveal the darkness.

I think in a way the great irony or paradox about America is that it makes it so hard for the sensitive person, the artist, the impressionable person, the person whose raison d'etre is to incarnate the creative will, rather than to just make money, and yet that extreme difficulty that the culture poses for us has created some of the best artists in the last hundred years.

Writing, like any art, is a continuing process of discovering the infinite possibilities of Life.

However they may have felt when they left they were now committed, they had passed the point of no return.

I think the function of suffering is to let me know that my perception is skewed; what I’m doing is judging natural events in such a way that I am creating suffering within myself. For instance, you have pain over certain conditions, certain situations that occur. And if you just say ‘ok, here I am, I’m going to experience the pain,’ you don’t suffer. The resistance and the degree of the resistance to the natural phenomenon of life causes tremendous suffering.

I'm always presenting myself with problems to solve as a writer.