I suppose one should have an integrated personality, but I've never really seen the point. — Colm Toibin Integrated Copy Share Image
“...she still stopped when her mind moved towards real fear or dread or, worse, towards the thought that she was going to… — Colm Tóibín Fear Copy Share Image
I don't think we have a right to enjoy our neuroses; in fact, I believe that we have a duty not to.… — Colm Toibin Away Copy Share Image
I live in words. I like looking at things, but I don't have a strong visual imagination. — Colm Toibin Creativity 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 turned and moved fast, focusing swiftly on a wave I had selected for no reason. There was whiteness and grenyess in… — Colm Toibín Blue and green 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
I think that was one of the things that happened, especially in Ireland, that you left in order to improve yourself, and… — Colm Toibin Because Copy Share Image
I went to live in Barcelona in 1975, when I was twenty. Even before I went there, I knew more about the… — Colm Toibin Barcelona 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 Deals Copy Share Image
'One Minus One' and 'Barcelona, 1975' are more or less autobiographical. — Colm Toibin Autobiographical Copy Share Image
“Could we move around the world staying in nice hotels, just we three, and writing letters home when some very witty remark… — Colm Tóibín Around the world Copy Share Image
“Mankind,” Henry found himself saying, “is a very large business.” — Colm Tóibín Business Copy Share Image
When I was 19, I thought I wanted to be an English civil servant. It was the most exotic thing at the… — Colm Toibin Ad Copy Share Image
“It had been easier to present a self in full possession of pride and confidence.” — Colm Tóibín Confidence Copy Share Image
In my 20s, as I began to travel in Europe, I found comfort in religious paintings. Even though my own belief in… — Colm Toibin Art 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
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
As I settled down to sleep in that new bed in the dark city, I saw that it was too late now,… — Colm Toibin Bed 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
in skies of deepening blue the moon, heaven's queen was now afloat — Colm Toibin Blue Copy Share Image
“Trollope and Balzac, Zola and Dickens would, he felt, have become bitter old preachers, or mad hairy schoolmasters had they been born… — Colm Tóibín Copy Share Image
The novel space is a pure space. I'm nobody once I go into that room. I'm not gay, I'm not bald, I'm… — Colm Toibin Anybody 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 Small talk Copy Share Image
