Colm Toibin Quotes About Writing

Quotes about: Writing

• Writing tends to be very deliberate. A novelist could probably run a military campaign with some success. They could certainly run a country.

  Colm Toibin

  Country, Running, Military

  "Colm Tóibín, novelist - portrait of the artist". Interview with Laura Barnett, www.theguardian.com. February 19, 2013.

• All writing is a form of manipulation, of course, but you realize that a plain sentence can actually do so much.

  Colm Toibin

  Writing, Manipulation, Realizing

• 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 a pleasure.

  Colm Toibin

  Strong, Writing, Suffering

  "Colm Tóibín, novelist - portrait of the artist". Interview with Laura Barnett, www.theguardian.com. February 19, 2013.

• I wrote every day between the ages of 12 and 20 when I stopped because I went to Barcelona, where life was too exciting to write.

  Colm Toibin

  Writing, Age, Barcelona

  "You can take the man out of Ireland". Interview with Robert McCrum, www.theguardian.com. April 25, 2009.

• I have to write a first draft with a fountain pen before I type it up as a second.

  Colm Toibin

  Writing, Firsts, Fountain

• I am violently untidy. My desk is overcrowded. I write my first drafts in longhand in a long notebook using a plastic throwaway fountain pen. Then I work on a word processor using a different desk and a different room.

  Colm Toibin

  Notebook, Writing, Long

• I write with a sort of grim determination to deal with things that are hidden and difficult and this means, I think, that pleasure is out of the question. I would associate this with narcissism anyway and I would disapprove of it.

  Colm Toibin

  Determination, Writing, Mean

  "Writing is 'no fun', says Toíbín" by Alison Flood, www.theguardian.com. March 2, 2009.

• I never listen to music when I am writing. It would be impossible. I listen to Bach in the mornings, mostly choral music; also some Handel, mostly songs and arias; I like Schubert's and Beethoven's chamber music and Sibelius' symphonies; for opera, I listen to Mozart and in recent years Wagner.

  Colm Toibin

  Song, Morning, Writing

• The problem is once you've written the opening paragraph and worked out how the rest of the story will go in your head, there's nothing in it for you. I write in longhand using disposable fountain pens on the right-hand side of the notebook for the first draft, then I rewrite some of the sentences and paragraphs on the left-hand side.

  Colm Toibin

  Notebook, Writing, Hands

• Anyone who works in the arts knows, if you're writing a novel or a play or anything, you have to be ready for someone to say, 'Your time is up.'

  Colm Toibin

  Art, Writing, Play

• The sentences I write have their roots in song and poetry, and take their bearings from music and painting, as much as from the need to impart mere information, or mirror anything. I am not a realist writer, even if I seem like one.

  Colm Toibin

  Song, Writing, Mirrors

  "Exclusive Interview: Colm Toibin Talks About His New Story Collection". Interview with Anis Shivani, www.huffingtonpost.com. January 20, 2011.

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

  Colm Toibin

  Writing, Taught

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