Steve Toltz

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 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.

I enjoy being influenced by other writers.

Raymond Chandler I love a lot, and the Austrian writer Thomas Bernhard. I really love his voice.

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.

Optimism isn't funny unless you are laughing at the person, whereas extreme pessimism is extremely funny. It's exaggeration.

There's only one common element that united every writer I've admired... they're all incredibly well-read.

When people come up to me and say, 'I read your book,' I'm thinking, 'How dare you! Who gave you a copy?'

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 always say, 'Write what you know', but I've always found that to be terrible advice. It's quite limiting, what you know.

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.