“It had been easier to present a self in full possession of pride and confidence.” — Colm Tóibín Confidence Copy Share Image
in skies of deepening blue the moon, heaven's queen was now afloat — Colm Toibin Blue Copy Share Image
“I don't come out of an oral tradition, I come out of silence.” — Colm Tóibín Culture Copy Share Image
I have to write a first draft with a fountain pen before I type it up as a second. — Colm Toibin Copy Share Image
John McGovern taught me that it's OK to write repeatedly about the same things. — Colm Toibin Copy Share Image
I feel just fine about ignoring or bypassing the rights of people I have known and loved to be rendered faithfully, or… — Colm Toibin Copy Share Image
Describe character using dialogue. Describe character using what the characters see or do or think, but not what they had done or… — Colm Toibin Copy Share Image
“I’m hungry.” “We’re all hungry. But, darling, you don’t need to look hungry. Pretend you are full.” “And” — Colm Tóibín Food Copy Share Image
“if you want witnesses then I am one and I can tell you now, when you say that he redeemed the world,… — Colm Tóibín Evocative Copy Share Image
Writer's block! It doesn't exist. You just long for ideas to go away so you have an idea of peace. — Colm Toibin Copy Share Image
People's interest in glamour and clothes and nylon stockings and all those things were, when I was a little boy, the sort… — Colm Toibin Copy Share Image
“It was like the arrival of night when you knew that you would never see anything in daylight again.” — Colm Tóibín Daylight Copy Share Image
“In the morning, she was not sure that she had slept as much as lived a set of vivid dreams, letting them… — Colm Tóibín Dreams Copy Share Image
The sentences I write have their roots in song and poetry, and take their bearings from music and painting, as much as… — Colm Toibin Copy Share Image
I first went to Barcelona in 1975 after university, and I stayed for three years. I learnt Catalan because that's what everyone… — Colm Toibin Barcelona Copy Share Image
I think the whole business of people emigrating was that no one ever told them, although everyone knew, especially if it was… — Colm Toibin Copy Share Image
I was first in Sydney in 1993, and have been a few times since then. For someone who didn't know Australia, it… — Colm Toibin Australia Copy Share Image
“I do not care much about the mysteries of the universe, unless they come to me in words, or in music maybe,… — Colm Tóibín Beauty Copy Share Image
You have to keep writing. It's almost like practice, almost like tennis, that actually after a few days of not writing, first… — Colm Toibin Copy Share Image
People love talking about writers as storytellers, but I hate being called that: it suggests I got it from my grandmother or… — Colm Toibin Copy Share Image
“He turned and looked at Henry. “Did you always know that you would write all these books?” “I know the next sentence,”… — Colm Tóibín Book Copy Share Image
I do not know why it matters that I should tell the truth to myself at night, why it should matter that… — Colm Toibin Bird Copy Share Image
“You have asked two questions, and I will answer them separately,” Gray said. “Trollope writes with precision and feeling about love and… — Colm Tóibín Love Copy Share Image
“His consolation was that at least he had known her as the world had not, and the pain of living without her… — Colm Tóibín Consolation Copy Share Image
“There was a time, I know, when I felt rage and I felt sorrow. But now I have lost what leads up… — Colm Tóibín Grief Copy Share Image
“Henry wondered, too, what life would have had for her and how her exquisite faculty of challenge could have dealt with a… — Colm Tóibín Copy Share Image
“A novelist's job is almost to be a stupid as possible, except in the cunning moment when you need to structure something,… — Colm Tóibín Empty mind Copy Share Image
“But he also knew that, as much as he wanted to aid and console the soldier, he wanted to be alone in… — Colm Tóibín Alone Copy Share Image
“I saw him trying to struggle and call out. But because of the robe, he could not move and his voice could… — Colm Tóibín Agamemnon Copy Share Image
Between the ages of 8 and 12 it was difficult to know what my father was saying, and he moved very slowly,… — Colm Toibin Age Copy Share Image
Solitude is good in the evening. Dublin is a quiet city when you get to a certain age, when your friends settle… — Colm Toibin Age Copy Share Image
I live in words. I like looking at things, but I don't have a strong visual imagination. — Colm Toibin Creativity Copy Share Image
It really matters to writers to find and treasure readers, all the more when they're on the other side of the world. — Colm Toibin Books Copy Share Image
It is important to find a publisher and equally important not to be noticed until your third or fourth book. — Colm Toibin Book Copy Share Image
“In the meantime, when I wake in the night, I want more. I want what happened not to have happened, to have… — Colm Tóibín Copy Share Image
“It was my companion, my strange friend who woke me in the night and again in the morning and who stayed close… — Colm Tóibín Companion Copy Share Image
The best thing about New York is working late into the night. At 1 in the morning on a Saturday, to be… — Colm Toibin Copy Share Image
“The rest of the time he entertained all the guilt that wished to call, carried in by the wind through the darkness,… — Colm Tóibín Darkness Copy Share Image
“Even when she woke in the night and thought about it, she did not allow herself to conclude that she did not… — Colm Tóibín Heart Copy Share Image
“She wondered if she was alone in having nothing between the dullness of her own days and the sheer brilliance of this… — Colm Tóibín Copy Share Image
