JM Tohline Quotes

“The way my mind flows is conducive to self-learning. I do better obsessively studying various writers and writing techniques and writing theories on my own than I would do if I were in a classroom and the professor was telling me (and 20 other students at the same time) to study these same things. Even if the professor told us to study the exact things I would otherwise be studying on my own, I would have a much harder time applying myself and focusing and taking anything the professor assigned seriously. That’s just the way my mind works–my fear of groupthink, my desire toward (passion for, obsession with) uniqueness and originality and the creation of new things. By studying things on my own, I might arrive at the exact same place others arrive at as they study amongst their peers–but to my mind, this would be okay. I at least would have arrived there (at those thoughts, at those techniques, at those ideas and approaches and whatever-else-have-you) on my own. And that’s just me.”

“Without desire how is it possible to make a story?”

“I like that original romance of having a pen and a legal pad and going anywhere in the world and being able to write a novel with just those two things.”

“I believed in fictional characters as if they were a part of real life. Poetry was important, too. My parents had memorized poems from their days attending school in New York City and loved reciting them. We all enjoyed listening to these poems and to music as well.”

“The language of the Catholic Church - the liturgy, the prayer, the gospels - was in many ways my first poetry.”

“I read a little bit of nonfiction and a lot of poetry. I think of poetry as my shot of whiskey when I don't have time to savor a whole bottle of wine.”

“Yeah, romantic comedies are the hardest movies to make. Maybe one works a year.”

“In grammar school I read 'Act One' by Moss Hart, and being a playwright struck me as the most magical and romantic career anyone could have... But I never did write a play.”

“Nowadays you really have to pump out that blockbuster in order to have the luxury of getting a body of work, and that's sad because the work suffers. Today everything is based on money. The older actors, they inspire me.”

“Sometimes you have got to look at things really positively - without putting your head in the sand, you have got to manage the negatives and keep putting a positive slant on it, keep trying to find answers.”