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4317cba
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the problem for her was that she was on her own now and that she had no idea how to live.
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Colm Tóibín |
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0dfd42f
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On one of the nights during my journey I wandered out under the sky which was lit with stars and I believed for a moment that soon these stars would cease to glitter, that the nights of the future would be dark beyond dark, that the world itself would undergo a great change, and then I quickly came to see that the change would happen only to me and to the few who knew me; it would be only we who would look at the sky at night in the future ..
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Colm Tóibín |
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d33e733
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So this was what being alone was like, she thought. ... It was this wandering in a sea of people with the anchor lifted, and all of it oddly pointless and confusing.
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Colm Tóibín |
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5659357
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You never know what way life goes. Some of it makes no sense at all.
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Colm Tóibín |
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0d50ae5
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Az ne podozirakh, che muzikata, koiato tazi noshch me izvisi i iztr'gna ot samiia men, koiato biakh v'zpriel kato veliko novo nachalo, sled desetiletie shche mi se struva sladnikava i neseriozna, nedostat'chno germanska, nedostat'chno kategorichna. B'deshcheto e kato chuzhda d'rzhava - tam vsichko se v'rshi drugoiache.
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Colm Tóibín |
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7c1b267
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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.
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Colm Tóibín |
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cb00028
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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.
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Colm Tóibín |
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6f57997
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What is hard to understand is that our dreams matter
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Colm Tóibín |
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14ef8be
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Tony was so wrapped up in the game that it gave her a chance to let her thoughts linger on him, float towards him, noting how different from her he was in every way. The idea that he would never see her as she felt that she saw him now came to her as an infinite relief, as a satisfactory solution to things.
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Colm Tóibín |
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2b37863
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What she loved most about America, Eilis thought on these mornings, was how the heating was kept on all night.
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Colm Tóibín |
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7c26263
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Time and patience would bring a snail to America,' he repeated.
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Colm Tóibín |
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71ec234
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The idea that she would leave all of this - the rooms of the house once more familiar and warm and comforting - and go back to Brooklyn and not return for a long time again frightened her now. She knew as she sat on the edge of the bed and took her shoes off and then lay back with her arms behind her head that she had spent every day putting off all thought of her departure and what she would meet on her arrival.
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nostalgic
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Colm Tóibín |
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58c91fb
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Well, I didn't really know what to say. So maybe I should say that I have thought about you and I like you, I like seeing you, I care for you and maybe I love you too. And the next time if you tell me you love me, I'll--" She stopped.
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fiction
love
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Colm Tóibín |
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4072a68
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Eilis replied to say that it was not just Mrs Kehoe, who was not in any way extravagant, it was everyone in America, they all kept their heating on all night. As
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Colm Tóibín |
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71c4273
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She noticed then that Conor was watching her. 'Are you going for a swim?' he asked her. 'In a while. Why don't you go down and check if it's warm enough?' 'And if it's not warm enough?' 'We'll still go in. But at least we'll know.
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sea
swimming
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Colm Tóibín |
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31bc53e
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If you don't make mistakes, they'll notice you and they'll get to like you,' she added. Eilis
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Colm Tóibín |
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f5e4b50
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It was later, when she got home and lay in the bed after her evening meal, that the day she had just spent would seem like one of the longest of her life as she would find herself going through it scene by scene. Even tiny details stayed in her mind. When she deliberatively tried to think about something else, or leave her mind blank, events from the day would come quickly back. For each day, she thought, she needed a whole other day to con..
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Colm Tóibín |
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8f9a431
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Ne znam kolko vreme shcheshe da otselee na brega, ako ne go biakh spasil. Niamam predstava kolko trae zhivot't na kam'nite po ueksfordskite plazhove.
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Colm Tóibín |
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5278a92
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There's an immense dramatic possibility in describing that universe. The books, for me, were an enormous relief in that sense of how they were written to allow primary emotion, elemental emotion, to matter enormously but to give the thing an extraordinary flow so you don't notice at what point that you're actually overwhelmed by this. There's no showiness, at all. It's the opposite of showiness. I think, if it was a painting, it could be ve..
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fiction
short-stories
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Colm Tóibín |
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b997fff
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A mezhduvremenno imam samo tazi k'shcha,tazi svetlina, tazi svoboda, i shche prekarvam vremeto, stiga da imam nuzhnata smelost, v s'zertsavane na moreto, shche otbeliazvam promenite mu i zvutsite, koito izdava, shche izuchavam khorizonta, shche slusham viat'ra ili shche se naslazhdavam na tishinata, kogato e tikho. I dori v nai-d'lbokite si s'nishcha niama da letia tv'rde blizo do sl'ntseto ili tv'rde nisko nad moreto. V'zmozhnostta za vsic..
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Colm Tóibín |
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cf8ea2e
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in this waking time his presence, once so solid, lacked any substance or form; it was merely a shadow at the edge of every moment of the day and night.
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Colm Tóibín |
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f9a26e3
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Carefully, she went back up the stairs and found that if she moved along the first landing she would be able to see him from above. Somehow, she thought, if she could look at him, take him in clearly when he was not trying to amuse her or impress her, something would come to her, some knowledge, or some ability to make a decision.
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Colm Tóibín |
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f084e4e
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Finally, she let herself feel how much she had lost, how much she would miss.
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Colm Tóibín |
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3a3f0e7
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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 younger, any of us, so it's nice to spend a week together.
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Colm Tóibín |
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d3b3523
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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.
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Colm Tóibín |
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47ef510
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I have to give up everything, the house, the servants, my friends, my whole life. I will freeze to death or I will die of boredom. It will be a race between the two.
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Colm Tóibín |
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67fbacd
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There will always be reservations, things one must leave out, events one can't explain without handing over a full map of one's life, unfolding it, making clear that all the lines and contours stand for long days and nights when things were bad or good, or when things were too small to be described at all: when things just were. This is a life.
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narrative
storytelling
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Colm Tóibín |
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10472a4
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There were always children, Miss
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Colm Tóibín |
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c2f2699
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It struck her that he might have told no one, not even his brothers, how he felt, and she thought how lonely that might have been for him.
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loneliness
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Colm Tóibín |
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ffd114d
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I'm hungry." "We're all hungry. But, darling, you don't need to look hungry. Pretend you are full." "And"
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Colm Tóibín |
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fafc38a
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The world has loosened, like a woman preparing for bed who lets her hair flow free. And I am whispering the words, knowing that words matter, and smiling as I say them to the shadows of the gods of this place who linger in the air to watch me and hear me.
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Colm Tóibín |
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0f1f33e
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The memory of my name will last longer than the lives of many men.
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name
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Colm Tóibín |
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ea44fa2
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I saw him trying to struggle and call out. But because of the robe, he could not move and his voice could not be heard. I caught his hair and pulled his head back. I showed him the knife, pointing it first towards his eyes until he flinched, before I stabbed him in the neck just beneath the ear, moving aside to avoid the jet of spurting blood, and then, pushing the blade further into his neck, I began to drag it slowly across his throat, sl..
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Colm Tóibín |
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e442159
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It was my companion, my strange friend who woke me in the night and again in the morning and who stayed close all day.
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Colm Tóibín |
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f17c8a9
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it was
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Colm Tóibín |
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e70091e
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wind
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Colm Tóibín |
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a5cf022
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New people arrive and they could be Jewish or Irish or Polish or even coloured. Our old customers are moving out to Long Island and we can't follow them, so we need new customers every week. We treat everyone the same. We welcome every single person who comes into this store
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Colm Tóibín |
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8b4c4a3
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New people arrive and tehy cold be Jewish or Irish or Polish or even coloured. Our old customers are moving out to Long Island and we can't follow them, so we need new customers every week. We treat everyone the same. We welcome every single person who comes into this store.
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Colm Tóibín |
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8b05c0a
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I shall tell him that being partly invisible is merely a small aspect of my charm.
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Colm Tóibín |
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1154480
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Rose appeared to be in a sort of dream. As Eilis watched her, it struck her that she had never seen Rose look so beautiful. And then it occurred to her that she was already feeling that she would need to remember this room, her sister, this scene, as though from a distance. In the silence that had lingered, she realized, it had somehow been tacitly arranged that Eilis would go to America. Father Flood, she believed, had been invited to the ..
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Colm Tóibín |
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6958b4c
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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?"
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Colm Tóibín |
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891eac8
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She would try to put those two days behind her. No matter what she dreamed about, no matter how bad she felt, she had no choice, she knew, but to put it all swiftly out of her mind. She would have to get on with her work if it was during the day and go back to sleep if it was during the night. It would be like covering a table with a tablecloth, or closing curtains on a window; and maybe the need would lessen as time went on, as Jack had hi..
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Colm Tóibín |
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c30e3f1
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You must live with what you did,' Leander said. 'What you did is all you have.
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Colm Tóibín |
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207c13e
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You have asked two questions, and I will answer them separately," Gray said. "Trollope writes with precision and feeling about love and marriage. Yes, I can assure you of that. Now, the second question is rather different. Trollope, I believe, would take the view that it is the function of the preacher and the theologian, the philosopher and perhaps the poet, but emphatically not that of the novelist, to deal with what you call 'the great m..
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Colm Tóibín |