True history seeks, it does not gather; for the deeper we seek, the deeper we descend from knowledge to mystery, which is the only place where wisdom abides.
— Nick Tosches, Where Dead Voices Gather
The cellular core of what we call history—knowledge itself—is diseased. It is not the artful novelist who has blurred the divide between fiction and fact: it is the professor of learning, the peddler of secondhand misknowing. The more we “know,” the less we know. It is better to keep away from words, “facts,” “knowledge.” They are almost always the carriers of disease.
— Nick Tosches, Arnold Rothstein, King of the Jews: The Greatest Mob Story Never Told
(From Dave Sanjek’s unpublished comments on Tosches at LitPop: Writing and Popular Music conference, 2011)
Nick Tosches. Photograph: Nicholas Guerin/Contour by Getty.