“You have to keep writing. It's almost like practice, almost like tenni...” — Colm Toibin Quote

You have to keep writing. It's almost like practice, almost like tennis, that actually after a few days of not writing, first of all it makes you slightly depressed and uneasy, but it also affects the style when you start up again. You need to get the show on the road.

Writer's block! It doesn't exist. You just long for ideas to go away so you have an idea of peace.

Three of my novels and a good number of my short stories are told from the point of view of men. I was brought up in a house of women.

The old Victorian laws against homosexuality were still on the statute books until the early 1990s. As a gay man living in Ireland, I and people like me found it easy to feel less than citizens.

There's something about driving through Texas, and it's hot, your skin is sticking to you. The environment affects your attitude and your swagger.

The U.S. prison system, over all, disproportionately affects black and brown people, but people of color are overrepresented to a greater degree in private prisons.

I work at being a better member of my family. So I know that that affects and drifts and soaks into my work, and my art.

If I slip up and receive a good gift, I will not have given a good gift. This is probably a natural law that affects us all and needs a name. The Gift Reciprocal Law.