Colm Tóibín Quotes

For the first time in years, she felt the deep sadness of exile, knowing that she was alone here, an...

For the first time in years, he felt the deep sadness of exile, knowing that he was alone here, an o...

It is terrible to be an unprotected being.

He had grown fat on solitude, he thought, and had learned to expect nothing from the day but at best...

His consolation was that at least he had known her as the world had not, and the pain of living with...

But he also knew that, as much as he wanted to aid and console the soldier, he wanted to be alone in...

She noticed then that Conor was watching her.'Are you going for a swim?' he asked her.'In a while. W...

None of them could help her. She had lost all of them. They would not find out about this; she would...

She thought it was strange that the mere sensation of savouring the prospect of something could make...

She has gone back to Brooklyn,' her mother would say. And, as the train rolled past Macmire Bridge o...

The idea that she would leave all of this - the rooms of the house once more familiar and warm and c...

You create a world away from home and make new rooms for yourself. But when you arrive back home in ...

Well, I didn't really know what to say. So maybe I should say that I have thought about you and I li...

A novelist's job is almost to be a stupid as possible, except in the cunning moment when you need to...

We can all have plenty of lives, but there are limits. You never can tell what they are.

And then you’ll catch yourself thinking about something or someone who has no connection with the pa...

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...

The sentences I write have their roots in song and poetry, and take their bearings from music and pa...

There will always be reservations, things one must leave out, events one can’t explain without handi...

There’s an immense dramatic possibility in describing that universe. The books, for me, were an enor...

Solitude is good in the evening. Dublin is a quiet city when you get to a certain age, when your fri...

I live in words. I like looking at things, but I don't have a strong visual imagination.

I feel just fine about ignoring or bypassing the rights of people I have known and loved to be rende...

In my 20s, as I began to travel in Europe, I found comfort in religious paintings. Even though my ow...

Ending a novel is almost like putting a child to sleep – it can't be done abru