“ I told him before he departed that all my life when I have seen more than two men together I have seen foolishness and I have seen cruelty, but it is foolishness I have noticed first. Colm Toibin
“ She was nobody here. It was not just that she had no friends and family; it was rather that she was a ghost in this room, in the streets on the way to work, on the shop floor. Nothing meant anything.… Colm Toibin
“ Now, she felt that she was being singled out for something for which she was not in any way prepared, and this, despite the fear it carried with it, gave her a feeling, or more a set of feelings, she… Colm Toibin
“ She has gone back to Brooklyn,' her mother would say. And, as the train rolled past Macmire Bridge on its way towards Wexford, Eilis imagined the years already when these words would come to mean less… Colm Toibin
“ A novelist's job is almost to be a stupid as possible, except in the cunning moment when you need to structure something, when you need to be very intelligent indeed. The rest of the time, you need al… Colm Toibin
“ And then you’ll catch yourself thinking about something or someone who has no connection with the past. Someone who’s only yours. And you’ll realize… that this is where your life is. Colm Toibin
“ For the first time in years, she felt the deep sadness of exile, knowing that she was alone here, an outsider, and too alert to the ironies, the niceties, the manners, and indeed, the morals to be abl… Colm Toibin
“ We can all have plenty of lives, but there are limits. You never can tell what they are. Colm Toibin
