Colm Toibin Quotes

I don't know where the ideas come from, and it's terrifying. They seem to be absolute flukes. When I was in my 20s, I'd walk around with a notebook all the time and make sure I wrote down anything that occurred to me. Now I'm just hoping that some sort of event will descend on me.

I've often said that there's no such thing as writer's block; the problem is idea block.

I never get writer's block, but I do have days where I crawl under the duvet.

Writing is no trouble: you just jot down ideas as they occur to you. The jotting is simplicity itself - it is the occurring which is difficult.

If you want to know why all writers are a little crazy read 'The Midnight Disease' by Alice W. Flaherty. She talks about the drive to write, writer's block, and the creative brain. I know what's wrong with me!

I feel like I spend most of my time in a state of writer's block! When things do come out, they come out quickly.

It may be that learning to do creative work of any kind - not just direct imagery exercises - may help combat writer's block.

I've never suffered from writer's block. I have plenty of ideas, sometimes too many. I've always had a strong imagination. If it dries up I'll stop and look for another career.

Weirdly, often the more I write, the more ideas I have.

When the ideas are coming, I don't stop until the ideas stop because that train doesn't come along all the time.

I go into my workroom seven mornings a week. There will only be one or two mornings a week where it seems to be going well, but to earn those days you have to go through slow, slodgy days where your mind feels like porridge.

If you write, one of the questions you're always trying to answer is, Where do you get your ideas? And, if you write, you know how pointless a question this is and how difficult it is to answer.

I wake up in the morning and my mind starts making sentences, and I have to get rid of them fast - talk them or write them down.

As for the zone, I always find the zone immediately after I am sure I will never ever find the zone again because it has left me for some other, better writer.

I don't believe in writer's block. Think about it - when you were blocked in college and had to write a paper, didn't it always manage to fix itself the night before the paper was due? Writer's block is having too much time on your hands.

Every so often, I'll get an idea from a dream, but most of the time, ideas come to me while I'm toiling away at the keyboard just like every other writer.

But, yeah, I'm really happy when I'm writing. When I'm being creative and when I have something that I can put down. You know, if you go out and you overhear a conversation or you have a thought, you have a receptacle to go home and say, 'Oh, this would be great in this script.' Your antenna's out in a different way, and I love that time.

There's no such thing as writer's block. I'm brilliant all the time every day. It never stops.

You can't really think about more than one movie at a time. You're thinking about it consciously, and the subconscious is working too, and if you cram too much into your head, you don't get any ideas in the shower.

I've had one experience of writer's block in my life, and it was living hell. It was a terror for me.

For a long period in my life - it lasted about 10 years - I had writer's block.

I'm constantly battling writer's block; it usually takes me two hours to write anything.

If I get writer's block - this is going to sound funny - I take a shower. Something about the water feels like I'm cleaning my brain as well as my body.

I've been pretty lucky in that I'm not a big writer's block kind of person.

I get writer's block all the time. The only way I can write what I consider to be good lyrics is to put myself through the mill.