Suffering is too strong a word, but writing is serious work. I pull the stuff up from me - it's not as… — 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
In Ireland, novels and plays still have a strange force. The writing of fiction and the creation of theatrical images can affect… — Colm Toibin Copy Share Image
All writing is a form of manipulation, of course, but you realize that a plain sentence can actually do so much. — Colm Toibin Copy Share Image
If you have to read to cheer yourself up, read biographies of writers who went insane. — Colm Toibin Copy Share Image
The problem is once you've written the opening paragraph and worked out how the rest of the story will go in your… — Colm Toibin Copy Share Image
Writing tends to be very deliberate. A novelist could probably run a military campaign with some success. They could certainly run a… — Colm Toibin 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
“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 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
“Q: What's the biggest myth about writing? A: That there's any wildness attached to it. Writing tends to be very deliberate." [… — Colm Tóibín Copy Share Image
I write with a sort of grim determination to deal with things that are hidden and difficult, and this means, I think,… — Colm Toibin Copy Share Image
“Ending a novel is almost like putting a child to sleep – it can't be done abruptly." [ Colm Tóibín, Novelist –… — Colm Tóibín Copy Share Image
Anyone who works in the arts knows, if you're writing a novel or a play or anything, you have to be ready… — 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
I have to write a first draft with a fountain pen before I type it up as a second. — Colm Toibin 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 Copy Share Image
I wrote every day between the ages of 12 and 20 when I stopped because I went to Barcelona, where life was… — Colm Toibin 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 am violently untidy. My desk is overcrowded. I write my first drafts in longhand in a long notebook using a plastic… — Colm Toibin Copy Share Image
I never listen to music when I am writing. It would be impossible. I listen to Bach in the mornings, mostly choral… — 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 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
