“I have been acquainted with the smell of death. The sickly, sugary smell that wafted in the wind towards the rooms in this palace. It is easy now for me to feel peaceful and content.” — Colm Tóibín 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 speaks in… — Colm Toibin Copy Share Image
Suffering is too strong a word, but writing is serious work. I pull the stuff up from me - it's not as if it's… — Colm Toibin Copy Share Image
Three of my novels and a good number of my short stories are told from the point of view of men. I was brought… — Colm Toibin Copy Share Image
It may be enough to study history in all its nuance and ambiguity for its own sake. But there is no country free of… — Colm Toibin Copy Share Image
The only routine I have is that I finish everything I start. I wake up early every day - about 6.30 A.M. - but… — Colm Toibin Copy Share Image
While historians may go on attempting grand, sweeping and defining narratives, they work in a time when readers know that another narrative always lies… — 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
Some of our loves and attachments are elemental and beyond our choosing, and for that very reason they come spiced with pain and regret… — Colm Toibin 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 down and… — Colm Toibin Copy Share Image
“The details of what I told him were with me all the years in the same way as my hands or my arms were… — Colm Tóibín Copy Share Image
I did think of becoming a priest quite late on, when other boys were thinking of knocking over fences and going out with girls.… — Colm Toibin Copy Share Image
“Here in this cemetery, which they began to stroll around once more, the state of not-knowing and not-feeling which belonged to the dead seemed… — Colm Tóibín Copy Share Image
“I don’t go in for change. It is not one of my subjects. I have always taken the view that noticing change is a… — Colm Tóibín Copy Share Image
“There will always be reservations, things one must leave out, events one can’t explain without handing over a full map of one’s life, unfolding… — Colm Tóibín Copy Share Image
