Book Quote by Colm Tóibín

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

“What is hard to understand is that our dreams matter”

— Colm Tóibín

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

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

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

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

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

John McGovern taught me that it's OK to write repeatedly about the same things.

— Colm Toibin

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

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

“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

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