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Colm Tóibín Quotes
born 1955 Ireland
Colm Tóibín (Irish pronunciation: [ˈkɔl̪ˠəmˠ t̪ˠoːˈbʲiːnʲ] Kol-um toe-BEEN; born May 30, 1955) is an Irish novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright, journalist, critic and poet. He is currently Irene and Sidney B.
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8 quotes
If a storyteller came up to me, I'd run away.
Ending a novel is almost like putting a child to sleep – it can't be done abruptly.
I was brought up in a house where there was a great deal of silence.
I have a rule that I don't drink in New York because I don't want to wake up with a hangover and not be able to work.
I wanted to be a poet as a child and I have a wall in my study dedicated to poetry books, all in alphabetical order, that reminds me daily of my failure.
I was the worst barman who ever lived. My pints of Guinness were unholy.
I went to a friend who's a girl and asked her, 'What's it like to have sex for the first time, if you're Irish – so you're modest, and it's the 1950s – so you've never seen it in a film?' I listened carefully to what she said, and I put it in the book. It was an important element, the detail was richly memorable for the person, it had to be in the book.
Colm Tóibín, novelist – portrait of the artist, The Guardian (19 February 2013)
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