A Quote by Colm Toibin
I was first in Sydney in 1993, and have been a few times since then. For someone who didn't know Australia, it came as a shock how intelligent, interesting and funny the people were. If I lived there I might see it differently, but as a visitor it was a lot of fun.
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It's interesting to see how a lot of people don't see the other side of the coin. Since they haven't been there. Someone might suggest your character say something that they'd never say. It doesn't occur to them that there are people who think differently about something, from another perspective.
I'd really like to go Sydney. I've been to Australia a few times, but I have never been there.
My family came to Australia on the First Fleet. My family’s been in that country for a long time, over 100 years. If your family’s lived in Australia for a long time, everyone has a little bit of [Aborigine blood]. I know my family does because we have an eye condition that only Aboriginal people have.
The biggest surprise for me, without a doubt, was that the first black people who came to the United States weren't the 20 who arrived in Jamestown in 1619. All of us had been taught that. Well, guess what? The first African came to Florida in 1513. And the huge shock is we know his name, Juan Garrido, and that he wasn't a slave. He was free! This brother was a conquistador who came with Ponce de Leon. He was looking for the Fountain of Youth just like the white people were.
There's always a Justin Bieber. Ever since I've been around, there's always been one of him. You know, you can trace it back from how old you are and the boy bands that came along then and the teen sensations and whatnot. And, you know, good for them. There's a few of them that make it out and a few of them that don't.
I always tell people there's some kind of wall that you have to break through to see the beauty of L.A. The first few times I came here, I was like, 'I don't know about this place.' Then one day, it just totally flipped for me. It was crazy.
I was shocked when I moved to Sydney how very few indigenous people I came across. And so when I go to places like Maroubra or Redfern or Waterloo or Erskineville, I feel more at home because of the people I'm around - anywhere I can see a face that reflects someone that looks like my family, I feel much more at home.
It might be a bad thing to be first , if you stop and think about it. It might be better to be second or third because then you can enjoy it and disappear - return to the society you came out of without someone always poking you in the side and saying you were first.
Well, you have to keep your faith in the fact that there are a lot of intelligent people who are actively looking for something interesting, people who have been disappointed so many times.
I think the beard helps offset - it's the only hairstyle I can really pull off. But I'm often clean-shaven. I think, you know, for me, it's not that signifier. What's interesting to me though is although the beard isn't a signifier of that to me, other people very often think that it is. And so people in America might react differently. The, you know, border agents might react differently. The guys at airport security might react differently.
Just because you "liked" my picture, doesn't mean you shouldn't call me and ask me how I'm doing. You know what's funny? If you ever owe someone a call, and it's something you're trying to avoid, notice how many times they "like" your photos until you call them back. It's an alarm, and people abuse that. They know you can see that. They know you'll see their name.
When I came to England it wasn't what it is now, then the black people were very rarely strong. I had a personal shock because England wasn't what I expected it to be... where people lived like Jane Austen.
The biggest surprise for me, without a doubt, was that the first black people who came to the United States weren't the 20 who arrived in Jamestown in 1619. All of us had been taught that. The first African came to Florida in 1513. And the huge shock is we know his name, Juan Garrido, and that he wasn't a slave. He was free!
If you purposefully look to shock people, it isn't funny. That's what 50 million dollar Hollywood comedies do; try to be shocking and dirty. They aren't really. It isn't enough to shock. It's easy to shock. Real surprise is what I'm after. Those early movies, we had drugs, which you weren't supposed to show. You weren't supposed to shoot up. We would make fun of hippies. I think that we were punk before there was punk.
A lot of people don't know the culture shock of how you can be in a rich area and then be in poverty. People don't know how different it is over there.
I actually like south Florida. I never lived in a more interesting place than this. I've never met a wider range of people. I guess when I came here I thought there were Cubans and then there were people from New York and that was Miami. Now I know that it's Cubans, people from New York, and some people from New Jersey.
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