Colm Toibin Quotes

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

• Up
• Work
• Writing
• Strong
• Serious
• Suffering

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Quotes to Explore

• When I was 11, I realised that I did not have to live the life my mother had: school, marriage, children, apartment, summer house.

  

  Maj Sjowall
  • Life
  • Live
  • Children

• It's great when a director like Cameron Crowe can take what you do and fit it into what he's doing. If someone's a fan of you already, they can take what you do and make it work for what they're doing. You don't know their vision, and you're thinking, 'How is this guy going to take what I do and make it work in this movie?'

  

  J. B. Smoove
  • Work
  • Great
  • Thinking

• I was 21 in 1968, so I'm as much a child of the '60s as is possible to be. In those years the subject of religion had really almost disappeared; the idea that religion was going to be a major force in the life of our societies, in the West anyway, would have seemed absurd in 1968.

  

  Salman Rushdie
  • Life
  • Religion
  • Child

• If there's anything worse than being 16, it's having parents visibly reliving their own teenage years in your anguished presence.

  

  Rachel Johnson
  • Parents
  • Years
  • Presence

• I've been very active all my life. I was a combat instructor in the Israeli Army.

  

  Gal Gadot
  • Life
  • My Life
  • Army

• Tragedy is like strong acid - it dissolves away all but the very gold of truth.

  

  D. H. Lawrence
  • Truth
  • Strong
  • Gold

• I did not love reading, spelling, math and science. I struggled. I was a terrible speller.

  

  Gavin Newsom
  • Love
  • Science
  • Reading

• I always loved advertising. If I hadn't been in fashion, I'd have been in advertising.

  

  Karl Lagerfeld
  • Fashion
  • Loved
  • Advertising

• Television offered me the opportunity to do new things; I had written a lot of scripts other than scary movies. I had actually written some romantic comedies and stuff that I really wanted to try my hand at, and nobody would let me do that. Television allowed me to do anything I wanted.

  

  Gary Sherman
  • Opportunity
  • Romantic
  • Scary

• Vilification on the grounds of race or religion is always wrong. There's no place for inciting hatred within our Australia society.

  

  Barry O'Farrell
  • Society
  • Religion
  • Hatred

• In Hollywood they're getting younger, but believe me, it's not the food. It's the plastic surgery.

  

  S. Jay Olshansky
  • Believe
  • Food
  • Me

• I consider science fiction and fantasy my genre. And I've noticed over the years that there doesn't tend to be a lot of lighthearted, comedic stuff.

  

  Gail Carriger
  • Science
  • Science fiction

• There are a lot of dynamics and a lot of politics that go into records and getting played on the radio.

  

  Isaac Hanson Hanson
  • Politics
  • Radio
  • Getting

• When you practice gratefulness, there is a sense of respect toward others.

  

  Dalai Lama
  • Respect
  • Practice
  • Thankful

• Don't try to be like somebody else. You'll be miserable. You need to be yourself, and don't ever get a big head.

  

  Carlene Carter
  • Yourself
  • Try
  • Be Yourself

• I was the family alien. Both my parents are quite creative, but I was... appalling... always putting on little shows. I was rather a shy child, not a natural performer, but there was a performative edge to everything I did.

  

  Laura Wade
  • Family
  • Parents
  • Child

• I'm very grateful to God for what he gives me. Victories, remarkable victories, but you have to go through the defeats. That is why I praise God for everything.

  

  Fedor Emelianenko
  • God
  • Why
  • Me

• The only instrument I can play is piano. Whenever I make songs at home, I play the piano and make them on the piano.

  

  Yoko Ono
  • Home
  • Play
  • Piano

• Everything that people lob at you who don't know you, it all hurts. When you're doing something as simple as making music, which really, theoretically, shouldn't hurt anyone - I mean, it's a song! Step back for five seconds and laugh.

  

  Liz Phair
  • People
  • Music
  • Song

• Yes I was burned but I called it a lesson learned. Mistake overturned so I call it a lesson learned. My soul has returned so I call it a lesson learned...another lesson learned.

  

  Alicia Keys
  • Soul
  • Mistake
  • Lesson

• You need just the right amount of ambition . . . If you have too little ambition, you don't push or work hard. If you have too much ambition, you put yourself ahead of others, elbow them out of your way.

  

  Andy Grove
  • Work
  • Way
  • Ambition

• I don't like the word 'urban' because I think it's a bit of a generalisation and they use it to class music, but I don't think it's a word that necessarily classes music.

  

  Taio Cruz
  • Music
  • Think
  • Like

• I am restless like my father and do two-three things at a time.

  

  Varun Dhawan
  • Time
  • Father

• 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
  • Up
  • Work
  • Writing