Steve Toltz
Steve Toltz
Steve Toltzis an Australian novelist...
NationalityAustralian
ProfessionNovelist
CountryAustralia
eight five hours might pages throw work worth written
If I've written five pages by hand, out of those five pages, one page might be worth saving. The rest is crap. I have to throw it away. It's like I need eight hours to do two hours' work.
love-you dozen might
You experience life alone, you can be as intimate with another as much as you like, but there has to be always a part of you and your existence that is incommunicable; you die alone, the experience is yours alone, you might have a dozen spectators who love you, but your isolation, from birth to death, is never fully penetrated.
element incredibly united
There's only one common element that united every writer I've admired... they're all incredibly well-read.
dinner sit somebody
I can't sit through dinner with somebody I don't like.
dare gave people
When people come up to me and say, 'I read your book,' I'm thinking, 'How dare you! Who gave you a copy?'
guess less lighter side
I think as you get older, there are things that there's just no light side to, but you know, I guess the more you empathise with people, the more empathy you have, the less you are able to see the lighter side.
people quite
People always say, 'Write what you know', but I've always found that to be terrible advice. It's quite limiting, what you know.
extreme extremely funny pessimism unless whereas
Optimism isn't funny unless you are laughing at the person, whereas extreme pessimism is extremely funny. It's exaggeration.
location move
I don't really have an office or anything, and I like to have to move location every two hours. So I just kind of write in a park, on a bench, in the library, in a cafe, back to the library, that kind of thing.
knew
If I knew a story page by page before I started writing it, I just wouldn't do it. The process of discovery is really important for my own enjoyment.
I'm not sure if I always wanted to be a writer, but I was always writing.
hide supposed whatever
I know you're supposed to hide your influences, but I suppose I see writing as riffing, really, about whatever you have been reading or thinking about that day or that week.
hopefully shall
I made some probably very cringe-worthy short films that shall hopefully never make the light of day.
mean reality together
I don't have a great respect for reality or getting the 'facts' as a means of putting together a story.