I went to live in Barcelona in 1975, when I was twenty. Even before I went there, I knew more about the Spanish Civil War than I did about the Irish Civil War. I liked Barcelona, and then I grew to like a place in the Catalan Pyrenees called the Pillars, especially an area between the village of Flavors and the high mountains around it.
Colm ToibinI suppose one should have an integrated personality, but I've never really seen the point.
Colm ToibinWhen a book comes from the publisher and you see it for the first time... Of course it's not remotely like seeing a baby for the first time, but I can remember with each book what room I was in when I opened it. That would be excitement, though, I think. Not pride.
Colm ToibinI think fiction lends itself to messiness rather than the ideal, and plays well with the ironies surrounding what happens versus what should happen.
Colm ToibinWriting tends to be very deliberate. A novelist could probably run a military campaign with some success. They could certainly run a country.
Colm Toibin