“ The rest of the time he entertained all the guilt that wished to call, carried in by the wind through the darkness, to enter his spirit... Colm Toibin
“ In the morning, she was not sure that she had slept as much as lived a set of vivid dreams, letting them linger so that she would not have to open her eyes and see the room. Colm Toibin
“ He had grown fat on solitude, he thought, and had learned to expect nothing from the day but at best a dull contentment. Sometimes the dullness came to the fore with a strange and insistent ache which… Colm Toibin
“ Could we move around the world staying in nice hotels, just we three, and writing letters home when some very witty remark is made by one of us? Alice asked. Could we do this forever? Colm Toibin
“ In my 20s, as I began to travel in Europe, I found comfort in religious paintings. Even though my own belief in Catholic dogma had been shaken and weakened, I found that the beauty and the richness of… Colm Toibin
“ The idea that what had happened could be erased, that the burden that was on her now could be lifted, that the past could be restored and could make its way effortlessly into a painless present. Colm Toibin
“ People shouting that if he could heal the sick and make the crippled walk and the blind see, then he could raise the dead. Colm Toibin
“ It was like the arrival of night when you knew that you would never see anything in daylight again. Colm Toibin
“ For a while she was quietly resigned to the prospect that nothing would change, but she did not know what the consequences would be, or what form they would take. Colm Toibin
“ We walk among them sometimes, the ones who have left us. They are filled with something that none of us knows yet. It is a mystery. Colm Toibin
“ She thought it was strange that the mere sensation of savouring the prospect of something could make her think for a while that is must be the prospect of home. Colm Toibin
“ I have,’ Georgina said. ‘I go home once a year to see my mam. It’s a lot of suffering for a week. By the time I’ve recovered I have to go back. But I love seeing them all. We’re not getting any younge… Colm Toibin
“ Henry wondered, too, what life would have had for her and how her exquisite faculty of challenge could have dealt with a world which would inevitably attempt to confine her. His consolation was that a… Colm Toibin
