I work very deliberately, with a plan. But sometimes I come to a point that I planned as the end and it needs softening. Ending a novel is almost like putting a child to sleep - it can't be done abruptly.
Colm ToibinRead
It really matters to writers to find and treasure readers, all the more when they're on the other side of the world.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Writers value their readers, especially those who are far away, as reading creates a meaningful connection across distances.
This quote emphasizes the deep appreciation that writers have for their readers, underscoring that the act of writing transcends geographical barriers. It highlights the importance of forming connections and the shared experience that literature can provide, allowing the thoughts and emotions of the writer to reach and resonate with individuals around the globe.
Themes
WritersReadersConnectionLiteratureGlobal
In practice
Example use cases
Use this quote in a speech about the importance of literature in connecting cultures.
More from Colm Toibin
All quotes βYou create a world away from home and make new rooms for yourself. But when you arrive back home in your old rooms, the world you've made for yourself ceases to be real. Everything seems to crumble. Anyone who's been sent away to boarding school can understand that.
Colm ToibinRead
History is a way of interpreting, rather than, say, knowing, the past. It is usually a set of disputes between those who have access to the same sources. It depends on ideology as much as voting in an election does.
Colm ToibinRead
Some of our loves and attachments are elemental and beyond our choosing, and for that very reason they come spiced with pain and regret and need and hollowness and a feeling as close to anger as I will ever be able to manage.
Colm ToibinRead
People love talking about writers as storytellers, but I hate being called that: it suggests I got it from my grandmother or something, when my writing really comes out of silence. If a storyteller came up to me, I'd run away.
Colm ToibinRead
Everyone who's in America spends the first few years not experiencing it. The person is frightened by the newness of the place and doesn't see things. Her emotional universe becomes the entire universe. And then when she thinks of home, her distance in space can seem like a distance in time.
Colm ToibinRead
Similar quotes
My mother, Southern to the bone, once told me, βAll Southern literature can be summed up in these words: βOn the night the hogs ate Willie, Mama died when she heard what Daddy did to Sister.ββ She raised me up to be a Southern writer, but it wasnβt easy.
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Two questions form the foundation of all novels: "What if?" and "What next?" (A third question, "What now?", is one the author asks himself every 10 minutes or so; but it's more a cry than a question.) Every novel begins with the speculative question, What if "X" happened? That's how you start.
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A novel is a machine for generating interpretations.
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I think the reason these readers come back to me is because I represent their points of view. It may not be my point of view, but that's OK. Everyone still deserves to have their say.
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What fiction offers us is an intimacy shorn of the messy contingencies of human existence - gender, race, class or age. Those moments of transcendence when we exclaim 'You know exactly what I mean!' depend for much of their force on the anonymous character of the intimacy between writer and reader.
Will SelfRead
When we talk about books, we rarely talk about the economic side of writing, especially of writing literary works, and that, at base, it's a pretty costly enterprise.
Olga TokarczukRead