Colm Toibin Quotes

To dream of the person you would like to be is to waste the person you are.

People always tell me, 'Reinvent yourself, re-this, re-whatever.' I haven't reinvented myself. It's an honest evolution. I've always been authentic.

I'm easy driving, But I'm not a person who loves living pleasantly above all else. I'm not that way at all. I might think I'm that, but I'm not really that.

I may be no better, but at least I am different.

I'm not quite as cool as I would like to be, really.

We all want to be someone else but without ceasing to be ourselves. I think it's very important to defend this idea in real life too.

I'll never be August Wilson - but what I can be is more of myself.

Who you are vs. who you wish you were: Who wins?

If you spend the first 30 years of your life only trying to look good, you're not going to know yourself very well. If you got it, flaunt it.

There's who you think you are and who you want to be, and then who you actually are.

I am how I am. I cannot explain it well, but I don't feel the nicest person, on the football pitch or in life, I'm just myself.

First you have to know who you are. That is the most important thing, as if you don't know who you are you will either get swallowed up or you follow some unsuitable trends and just become a nonentity.

I have never regarded myself as this or that. I have been too busy being myself to bother about regarding myself.

I feel like all my faults go into making the person that I am. I like myself as a person. And I think taking any fault away would change who I am as a person.

You cannot live your life looking at yourself from someone else's point of view.

There's no reason to change what you are, but if you're not being you, then you need to acknowledge that.

I am a very honest person, and I can only say there are moments in my life where I really did think I was being me in the sense of my morals and beliefs and the way I acted. But when I look back at certain things that I wore and my hair and make-up, I was like, 'Whoa! That wasn't me!' But I didn't know it back then.

Some people are more fluid than others at just being themselves and recognizing what's good about themselves.

I believe happiness is a chemical imbalance - it's a silly thing to strife for. But satisfaction - if you seek satisfaction, you can succeed. Satisfaction is knowing that you're doing the best that you can do; you're living your life to the fullest.

You don't have to look like George Clooney. You just have to know yourself.

I like when people know who they are, know their limitations and what they want to do. It's the same thing for me.

Learn what you are and be such.

I always like whatever I did most recently. It's the closest to who I am at the moment.

It seems that different people have an idea of what I am, and what I should be. And then there's me.

I couldn't change who I am; I couldn't change the kind of player I am.