Irish - Novelist | May 30, 1955 -
All writing is a form of manipulation, of course, but you realize that a plain sentence can actually do so much.
Colm Toibin
WritingYouRealizeManipulation
Life has a funny way of becoming ordinary as soon as it can.
LifeFunnyWayOrdinaryBecoming
In Ireland, novels and plays still have a strange force. The writing of fiction and the creation of theatrical images can affect life there more powerfully and stealthily than speeches, or even legislation. Imagined worlds can lodge deeply in the private sphere, dislodging much else, especially when the public sphere is fragile.
LifeWritingCreationStrangeMore
I have to write a first draft with a fountain pen before I type it up as a second.
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Writing tends to be very deliberate. A novelist could probably run a military campaign with some success. They could certainly run a country.
SuccessWritingCountryRunMilitary
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.
WorkI AmLongPenDeskFountain
I said that when I looked at photographs of the firefighters who went into the Twin Towers, their faces looked to me like Irish faces. I hadn't yet learnt how careful outsiders have to be when talking about race in America, and I'd put my foot in it. Someone stood up and said aggressively, 'What do you mean by Irish faces?'
MeAmericaSomeoneTalkingYouSaid
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.
RestStoryProblemYouGoNothing
When I was 19, I thought I wanted to be an English civil servant. It was the most exotic thing at the time - can you imagine, in the middle of the IRA bombing campaigns? I saw an ad inviting Irish applicants for an induction course, so I signed up.
TimeThoughtYouIrishUpMiddle
It may be enough to study history in all its nuance and ambiguity for its own sake. But there is no country free of the need to find new ways of reading the past as an inspiring way of thinking about everything else, including the present.
HistoryPastFreeReadingThinking
The best thing about New York is working late into the night. At 1 in the morning on a Saturday, to be still working, there's an immense satisfaction in being enclosed by it.
MorningBestNew YorkNightSaturday
Between the ages of 8 and 12 it was difficult to know what my father was saying, and he moved very slowly, and then he died.
FatherSayingKnowDifficultSlowly
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