Steve Toltz Quotes

I'm a writer who likes to be influenced.

Usually I decide on what it is I'm writing next by the books I'm reading.

Most everything that happens to me in any significant sense finds its way into my fiction.

I used to think that when I finished a book, I was finished with it. But it's like a wonderful Hydra. Every time a head disappears, more heads appear, so I will be writing for the rest of my life. The more books I write, the more books I find that I still have to write about. I use it like an inspiration, and that's wonderful.

I was able to work out all sorts of attitudes to style and event and character, all of which affected the way I came to think about my own writing. I believe that all good writers are original.

You cannot teach creativity - how to become a good writer. But you can help a young writer discover within himself what kind of writer he would like to be.

Remember Graham Green's dictum that childhood is the bank balance of the writer? I think that all writers feel alienated. Most of us go back to an alienated childhood in some way or another. I know that I do.

I don't have traceable literary models because I haven't had great literary influences in my life.

A lot of the time writers are just sponges... for what's around them, and so books are helpful for focusing your mind and literally putting it into words.

My writing process is a mix of research, personal experiences, washing the dishes, raising kids while thinking - then writing.

Now the writing in the head, I definitely do every day, thinking about how I want to phrase something or how I'd like to rephrase something I've already written.

One of my favorite things I read was John Steinbeck's journals while he was writing 'East of Eden,' which was so cool.

I still write the same way and have the same perspective.

I feel like part of getting better at writing is knowing where to find that inspiration. Right after something happens to me, the first thing I'll do is go write when those feelings are really, really fresh.

I know that the writers I read and admire all have an influence on my work, but trying to determine to what degree any particular piece of input changes the way I think about writing seems counterproductive.

A lot of writers that I know have told me that the first book you write, you write about your childhood, whether you want to or not. It calls you back.

Well, I think everything I've ever read contributes to the background from which I write.

Everything that you read is an influence on everything you write, and you want to draw as many elements into your work as you can.

I don't know if I am a good, average, or bad writer, but I write fast. Everything I observe, my experiences and imagination come together while writing.

As an observer, I'm analysing my reactions, I guess, and my thinking; but about the process of writing... I am not very talented at talking about what I do as a writer.

Of everything with 'The Room' that came out of it, I feel like being able to write, and tap back into that passion, was something I'm really thankful for.

Probably when I was about 16 or 17 I started writing. I wouldn't call it poetry, even though I've referred to it as poetry a couple times. But I don't think that's right. It was more scribblings and stream of consciousness.

I loved the writing process. I loved it.

If you're mostly a writer - if your point of departure is writing something - which for a writer/director is sort of where you start, you're really influenced by the writers you love one way or another.

When I first started writing, I didn't write about scientists at all. I think I wanted a break from that part of my world.