If you have to read to cheer yourself up, read biographies of writers who went insane. — Colm Toibin Biographies Copy Share Image
“You must live with what you did,’ Leander said. ‘What you did is all you have.” — Colm Tóibín Live Copy Share Image
“I shall tell him that being partly invisible is merely a small aspect of my charm.” — Colm Tóibín Invisible 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 Campaign 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
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
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
“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
Writer's block! It doesn't exist. You just long for ideas to go away so you have an idea of peace. — Colm Toibin Block 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 Boy 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… — Colm Tóibín Life Copy Share Image
“I have been acquainted with the smell of death. The sickly, sugary smell that wafted in the wind towards the rooms in… — Colm Tóibín Death 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 Creative process Copy Share Image
I work very deliberately, with a plan. But sometimes I come to a point that I planned as the end and it… — Colm Toibin Children Copy Share Image
I still have a stammer that I can control by not opening a sentence with a hard consonant, or by concentrating for… — Colm Toibin Absolute 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 Disposable Copy Share Image
My first novel was turned down by about twenty publishers over a period of two and a half years. Because my name… — Colm Toibin About 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… — Colm Toibin Attempting 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
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
“We live in a strange time,’ Electra said. ‘A time when the gods are fading. Some of us still see them but… — Colm Tóibín Different world Copy Share Image
“You know that you are the only person who shakes his head in exasperation when I insist on making jokes and small… — Colm Toibin Bitter Copy Share Image
“...in one of his Irish Times columns written under the name of Myles na gCopaleen, [Flann] O’Brien offered a service to readers… — Colm Tóibin Books Copy Share Image
“There’s an immense dramatic possibility in describing that universe. The books, for me, were an enormous relief in that sense of how… — Colm Tóibín Beauty 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
Describe character using dialogue. Describe character using what the characters see or do or think, but not what they had done or… — Colm Toibin Been Copy Share Image
I think you can get a sort of intensity and an edginess offering nine stories in a book. Competing versions of things. — Colm Toibin Book 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 Dullness Copy Share Image
I suppose one should have an integrated personality, but I've never really seen the point. — Colm Toibin Idea 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
The best thing about New York is working late into the night. At 1 in the morning on a Saturday, to be… — Colm Toibin About 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 Meantime 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 Anything 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… — Colm Tóibín Change Copy Share Image
“If water can be changed into wine and the dead can be brought back, then I want time pushed back.” — Colm Tóibín Time Copy Share Image
I think fiction lends itself to messiness rather than the ideal, and plays well with the ironies surrounding what happens versus what… — Colm Toibin Fiction 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 Art Copy Share Image
![“...in one of his Irish Times columns written under the name of Myles na gCopaleen, [Flann] O’Brien offered a service to readers who owned books but did not open them. For a fee, books would be handled, with passages underlined or spines damaged or words such as ‘Rubbish’ or ‘Yes, but cf Homer, Od…” quote by Colm Tóibin](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/586/colm-toibin-3377_books_in-one-of-his-irish-times-columns-writte_684539.jpg)
![“Ending a novel is almost like putting a child to sleep – it can't be done abruptly." [ Colm Tóibín, Novelist – Portrait of the Artist , The Guardian, 19 February 2013]” quote by Colm Tóibín](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/f03/colm-toibin-3377_art_ending-a-novel-is-almost-like-putting-a_2409916.jpg)