112 Quotes by Colm Tóibín

We live in a strange time,’ Electra said. ‘A time when the gods are fading. Some of us still see them but there are times when we don’t. Their power is waning. Soon, it will be a different world. It will be ruled by the light of day. Soon it will be a world barely worth inhabiting. You should feel lucky that you were touched by the old world, that in that house it brushed you with its wings.

She wished that she could pray now for something – for Declan to be better, or for Declan not to be worse. But she realised as she walked through the car park and then up through the fields that she could not pray. She could only wish; and she fervently wished that what was coming could be delayed or stopped as she made her way along the road into the village.

A novelist's job is almost to be a stupid as possible, except in the cunning moment when you need to structure something, when you need to be very intelligent indeed. The rest of the time, you need almost an empty mind, where you can let any image in, follow it along, and allow an emotional charge, almost the way actors and singers can work. The more instinct you have as a novelist, and the less intelligence, the better.

He stopped going to his own bed, waiting instead until Leander was ready for bed and then going to the room with him, the dog once more in his wake. He began to look forward to the night, to what happened between them in these hours, and to the morning when they woke.

The idea that she would leave all of this - the rooms of the house once more familiar and warm and comforting - and go back to Brooklyn and not return for a long time again frightened her now. She knew as she sat on the edge of the bed and took her shoes off and then lay back with her arms behind her head that she had spent every day putting off all thought of her departure and what she would meet on her arrival.

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, novelist – portrait of the artist (The Guardian, 19 February 2013)

And she wondered then if she herself were the problem reading malice into motives when there was none intended

He was delighted by things, as he was delighted by her, and he had done nothing else ever but make that clear.

Ending a novel is almost like putting a child to sleep – it can't be done abruptly."[Colm Tóibín, Novelist – Portrait of the Artist, The Guardian, 19 February 2013]