“The idea that she would leave all of this - the rooms of the house once more familiar and warm and comforting… — Colm Tóibín Every day 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
“memory and regret can mingle, how much sorrow can be held within, and how nothing seems to have any shape or meaning… — Colm Tóibín Memory Copy Share Image
“I remember too much; I am like the air on a calm day as it holds itself still, letting nothing escape.” — Colm Tóibín 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
“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
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
“He arranged the ceremony for two o'clock in the afternoon a week before she was to leave. The exam had gone well… — Colm Tóibín Coney island Copy Share Image
The next time I write a play - in order to get audience trust for a particular sort of tragic line, I'll… — Colm Toibin Afraid Copy Share Image
The old Victorian laws against homosexuality were still on the statute books until the early 1990s. As a gay man living in… — Colm Toibin Books Copy Share Image
“I shall tell him that being partly invisible is merely a small aspect of my charm.” — Colm Tóibín Copy Share Image
Between the time I was 16 until I was about 20, the books I read were by people like Thomas Mann, James… — Colm Toibin About 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 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
“The only time I've ever learned anything from a review was when John Lanchester wrote a piece in the Guardian about my… — Colm Tóibín Authors Copy Share Image
“I dreamed of setting it up out here in front of where I am sitting now, on the tripod that I would… — Colm Toibin Dreams 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
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
She was lonely without Blunt, but she was lonelier at the idea that the world went on as though she had not… — Colm Toibin Blunt 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 Although Copy Share Image
The Roman Catholic Church and its rituals were so much part of life that, although my parents would often question a small… — Colm Toibin Art of life Copy Share Image
I'm slightly influenced by sport in that I like the idea of trying, like an athlete, to keep absolutely ready. That's an… — Colm Toibin Absolutely 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
