Colm Toibin Quotes About Writing

We have collected for you the TOP of Colm Toibin's best quotes about Writing! Here are collected all the quotes about Writing starting from the birthday of the Novelist – May 30, 1955! We hope you will be inspired to new achievements with our constantly updated collection of quotes. At the moment, this page contains 12 sayings of Colm Toibin about Writing. We will be happy if you share our collection of quotes with your friends on social networks!
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  • 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 Tóibín, novelist - portrait of the artist". Interview with Laura Barnett, www.theguardian.com. February 19, 2013.
  • John McGovern taught me that it's OK to write repeatedly about the same things.

  • 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.

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

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

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

  • 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.

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

    "Colm Tóibín, novelist - portrait of the artist". Interview with Laura Barnett, www.theguardian.com. February 19, 2013.
  • I have to write a first draft with a fountain pen before I type it up as a second.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

    "You can take the man out of Ireland". Interview with Robert McCrum, www.theguardian.com. April 25, 2009.
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Colm Toibin quotes about: Books Writing