Colm Toibin Quotes
49 quotes
in 953 categories
-
I do not know why it matters that I should tell the truth to myself at night, why it should matter that the truth should…
-
I write with a sort of grim determination to deal with things that are hidden and difficult, and this means, I think, that pleasure is…
-
All writing is a form of manipulation, of course, but you realize that a plain sentence can actually do so much.
-
Anyone who works in the arts knows, if you're writing a novel or a play or anything, you have to be ready for someone to…
-
Between the ages of 8 and 12 it was difficult to know what my father was saying, and he moved very slowly, and then he…
-
I have to write a first draft with a fountain pen before I type it up as a second.
-
I live in words. I like looking at things, but I don't have a strong visual imagination.
-
I suppose one should have an integrated personality, but I've never really seen the point.
-
I think fiction lends itself to messiness rather than the ideal, and plays well with the ironies surrounding what happens versus what should happen.
-
I think you can get a sort of intensity and an edginess offering nine stories in a book. Competing versions of things.
-
I wrote every day between the ages of 12 and 20 when I stopped because I went to Barcelona, where life was too exciting to…
-
It is important to find a publisher and equally important not to be noticed until your third or fourth book.
-
It really matters to writers to find and treasure readers, all the more when they're on the other side of the world.
-
John McGovern taught me that it's OK to write repeatedly about the same things.
-
Life has a funny way of becoming ordinary as soon as it can.
-
'One Minus One' and 'Barcelona, 1975' are more or less autobiographical.
-
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 a…
-
Three of my novels and a good number of my short stories are told from the point of view of men. I was brought up…
-
Writer's block! It doesn't exist. You just long for ideas to go away so you have an idea of peace.
-
Writing tends to be very deliberate. A novelist could probably run a military campaign with some success. They could certainly run a country.
Browse Colm Toibin Quotes by Category