Nick Tosches > Quotes

“Exceptional men do not hold their experiences to be out of the ordinary or of interest to anyone else. Unlike the trodden fungus-men, they are not so ignorantly and presumptuously self-absorbed. They are nobody and they know it. They shun notice. They are exceedingly rare.”
― Nick Tosches, Me and the Devil

“The older you get, the more you live with ghosts.”
― Nick Tosches, Everything is an Afterthought

“And, of course, that is what all of this is - all of this: the one song, ever changing, ever reincarnated, that speaks somehow from and to and for that which is ineffable within us and without us, that is both prayer and deliverance, folly and wisdom, that inspires us to dance or smile or simply to go on, senselessly, incomprehensibly, beatifically, in the face of mortality and the truth that our lives are more ill-writ, ill-rhymed and fleeting than any song, except perhaps those songs - that song, endlesly reincarnated - born of that truth, be it the moon and June of that truth, or the wordless blue moan, or the rotgut or the elegant poetry of it. That nameless black-hulled ship of Ulysses, that long black train, that Terraplane, that mystery train, that Rocket '88', that Buick 6 - same journey, same miracle, same end and endlessness.”
― Nick Tosches

“I believe in the power of origins, a belief that, as Ecclesiastes put it, 'that wich is done is that wich shall be done: and there is no new thing under de sun'; that we claim as originality and discovery are nothing but the airs and delusios of our innocence, ignorance, and arrogance: that whatever is said was said better - more powerfully, beautifully, and purely, long ago”
― Nick Tosches, Country: The Twisted Roots Of Rock 'n' Roll

“They all fear death, but they want to hurry and cast away the time remaining between now and the grave. 'I can't wait till this day's over,' they say. 'I wish this week would end,' they say. 'I can't wait until next month,' they say. All of life they will ever know lies in the present breath that they are granted. But they, who would think us crazy for throwing away socks, throw away everything in their rush to obliterate their lives and be devoured all the sooner by their greatest fear. The end and its grave-mold. Their beginning is their end: a brief, nervous twitch of panic and dread, and nothing more.”
― Nick Tosches, Me and the Devil

“Everybody hated the Chinese, and the Chinese, ever willing to oblige, reciprocated.”
― Nick Tosches, King of the Jews

“It is always easier to see in another what we are uncomfortable with in ourselves.”
― Nick Tosches, Me and the Devil

“America was a land of machines, and it was through machines, the miraculous handmaidens of mob culture, that the muses of illiteracy brought America her voice and vision during the years of the immigrants’ waves. Centuries ago, movable type had given literacy to the common man. Now, through these wondrous newer machines, he would give it back.”
― Nick Tosches

“Of course, Heraclitus was right. Everything flows; nothing abides.”
― Nick Tosches, Country: The Twisted Roots Of Rock 'n' Roll

“At the time of the Russian emancipation, about 20 percent of the Russian population lived in serfdom. In the United States at this time, about 10 percent of the population lived in slavery.”
― Nick Tosches, King of the Jews

“I wanted to be alone, not forgotten.”
― Nick Tosches, Me and the Devil

“But the lie often repeated becomes history, and the snake-oil pitchman's forgery of yore becomes the inspirational gospel of a posterity that sees itself as worldly and wise.”
― Nick Tosches, King of the Jews

“That such a scrap of kitsch has endured in a way that the writing of Francis Bacon has not says much about what’s really timeless and what isn’t; that the 1959 “Deck of Cards” was far more popular with pop audiences than with country audiences says much about who the real kitschmongers are.”
― Nick Tosches, Country: The Twisted Roots Of Rock 'n' Roll

“What I can say with honesty is that my research in Russia and in Germany has brought me nothing but the worsening of my eyesight and the waste of years of my life. And I did it all for you.”
― Nick Tosches, King of the Jews

“In May “Rock Around the Clock” hit the charts, and it rose to Number One. In June it crossed over to the R&B charts, where it hit Number Four. “Rock Around the Clock” became the best-selling rock record in history, with sales of almost seventeen million to date. But what I find more fascinating, more important about the record, and about Bill Haley, is this: “Rock Around the Clock” was recorded three months before Elvis made his first record, and it was a hit nine months before Elvis appeared on the pop charts. Viewing Haley’s earlier records, such as “Rock the Joint,” as the first white rock-and-roll, and “Rock Around the Clock” as not only the first Number One rock hit, but also the first clear example of rock gone wholly astray, of fake Tin Pan Alley rock, one can plainly see that in the brief span from 1952 to 1955 rock-and-roll had already risen and fallen.”
― Nick Tosches, Country: The Twisted Roots Of Rock 'n' Roll

“A Sun record released in June 1954, a month after “Gonna Dance All Night,” came closer to the panting It: “My Kind of Carryin’ On” by Doug Poindexter and the Starlite Wranglers. It fluttered, shook like a creature flirting with madness. Sam must have slept well that night. “My Kind of Carryin’ On” was Poindexter’s only Sun single. In 1955 he retired from the music business after the breakup of his band. His lead guitarist, Scotty Moore, and his bass player, Bill Black, had joined with a new singer. Today Poindexter sells insurance in Memphis.”
― Nick Tosches, Country: The Twisted Roots Of Rock 'n' Roll

“It don’t mean a damned thing,” Colonel Parker was rumored to have remarked on Elvis’s death. “It’s just like when he was away in the army.”
― Nick Tosches, Country: The Twisted Roots Of Rock 'n' Roll

“Rothstein worked with Park Avenue men as beards in the club-house, and with Broadway characters, such as Morris the Boob on The Lawn, and he probably bet away from the track, too.”
― Nick Tosches, King of the Jews

“So the "great man" named Rudolph Giuliani made ladies' titties illegal.”
― Nick Tosches

“Sportsman's Hall offered four sporting events: rat killing by a weasel, rat killing by a dog, rat killing by a man, and dogfighting.”
― Nick Tosches, King of the Jews

“At a press conference in Washington, D.C., in 1957, actress Helen Hayes claimed that her son (later known as James MacArthur, sidekick of Jack Lord in “Hawaii Five-O”) had been well on the path to juvenile delinquency, brought on by rock-and-roll records. She cured him by playing a Beethoven record.”
― Nick Tosches, Country: The Twisted Roots Of Rock 'n' Roll

“(The unique echo sound of the Sun studio was achieved through the use of a tape-loop delay and a 7½-ips, instead of the more advanced 15-ips, two-track recorder. The added echo effect heard in Scotty Moore’s guitar relied on a custom-built amplifier, made in Cairo, Illinois, by a man named Ray Butts. Moore got the second amp that Butts built; the first went to Chet Atkins, the third to Carl Perkins, and the fourth to Roy Orbison. When he ceased working with Elvis in September 1957, Moore put the amp in a closet. Several closets later he withdrew it at Carl Perkins’s request and plugged it in for one of Carl’s Mercury sessions early in 1975.)”
― Nick Tosches, Country: The Twisted Roots Of Rock 'n' Roll

“On February 3, 1959, near Fargo, North Dakota, an airplane carrying Holly, Richie Valens, and the Big Bopper (J. P. Richardson) crashed, killing all aboard. Waylon Jennings, who was in Holly's band at the time, gave his seat to the Big Bopper at the last minute.”
― Nick Tosches, Country: The Twisted Roots Of Rock 'n' Roll