My father, God bless him, thought it was such an impossible desire to be able to make a living the way I do. I was destined to go into the bar business like him or go to college and be a lawyer. I was not encouraged, and in a way maybe that made me more hardheadedly committed to being a writer.
Nick ToschesMy most recent novel didn't start out scaring me, but as I got deeper into writing it, it scared me. It's not so much where the story's going. It's where it came from. I always come out of it thinking, Okay, that got it all outta me. The next one's gonna be nice and simple, and it's not gonna scare me, and that never seems to happen.
Nick ToschesI think the tendency with parents is to make your kid not unlike the next kid but to overprotect and say, "My way's better than whatever you've got in mind." But by the time that tie's over that shoulder and they're drinking that obligatory brewski with the boys, it's like, Man, who are you people?
Nick ToschesI don't know if enjoy is the right word for alcohol. I like to drink, but I don't like enforced social drinking. When I don't wanna drink, I don't wanna drink. I haven't had a desire to drink for four months. When I think of the taste of it, no desire. The trouble is the wines I love I can barely afford, which is a great method to cut down on your drinking: Drink only what you can't afford.
Nick Tosches