Quote

Part of the beauty of fiction is that we come alive in a body that we don't own.

Colum McCann

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Colum McCann
Age: 59
Born: 1965
Born: February 28
Academic
Journalist
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Dublin city
Fiction
Alive
Beauty
Part
Body
Come

More quotes by Colum McCann

Image
It had never occurred to me before but everything in New York is built upon another thing, nothing is entirely by itself, each thing as strange as the last, and connected.
Colum McCann
Image
...and it strikes her, as she walks, that borders, like hatred, are exaggerated precisely because otherwise they would cease to exist altogether.
Colum McCann
Image
Where happiness was not a possibility, the illusion of it was always more important.
Colum McCann
Image
She takes another long haul, lets the smoke settle in her lungs-- she has heard somewhere that cigarettes are good for grief. One long drag and you forget how to cry. The body too busy dealing with the poison.
Colum McCann
Image
The repeated lies become history, but they don't necessarily become the truth.
Colum McCann
Image
If they ask you to stand still, you should dance.
Colum McCann
Image
They told me Corrigan smashed all the bones in his chest when he hit the steering wheel. I thought, Well at least in heaven his Spanish chick'll be able to reach in and grab his heart.
Colum McCann
Image
Pain is not wat you get, it is wat you give.
Colum McCann
Image
We have to listen to other people's stories. That's the thing. And that's the only way that we eventually get to know ourselves.
Colum McCann
Image
I have the most charmed, most - I feel entirely blessed and lucky that I have the life that I have.
Colum McCann
Image
I'm a complete and utter fiction. Then again, we all are.
Colum McCann
Image
A book is completed only when it is finished by a reader.
Colum McCann
Image
I'm not so sure that I can teach people how to, you know, write dialogue or create plot or anything like that. But if I can get them and grab them by the scruff of the neck and say, you can do this, and if I see that fire in their eyes, that's when I think I know a writer.
Colum McCann
Image
A lot of people think that writers are much cleverer than they actually are. No, they're not. But they're emotionally clever, and they go into a character, and they feel something that they weren't entirely aware of beforehand.
Colum McCann
Image
There are moments we return to, now and always. Family is like water - it has a memory of what it once filled, always trying to get back to the original stream.
Colum McCann
Image
I don't really know what an adverb is. A dangling participle? That sounds really rude. I don't know what character is, really. Plot seems vaguely juvenile to me. It's all about language, it's all about how you apply it to the page.
Colum McCann
Image
I think the Northern Ireland accent is one of the most beautiful in the world.
Colum McCann
Image
I know already that I will return to this day whenever I want to. I can bid it alive. Preserve it. There is a still point where the present, the now, winds around itself, and nothing is tangled. The river is not where it begins or ends, but right in the middle point, anchored by what has happened and what is to arrive.
Colum McCann
Image
He might have been naive, but he didn't care he said he's rather die with his heart on his sleeve than end up another cynic.
Colum McCann
Image
The Irish are great for their tunes, but all their lovesongs are sad and their warsongs happy.
Colum McCann