Irvine Welsh Quotes
When people write a novel, they want to have that reach and that impact. To get it with a first novel, you can either see it as an albatross or a calling card.
Quotes to Explore
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We have to give feminism a shot. Out of sheer self preservation, we have to stand aside and let women run the show.
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That's the kind of consumer society we live in. We're always looking for the next product that's going to change your life instead of just going out and changing your life.
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Politicians are so... detested; they don't actually walk amongst people now.
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I enjoy the freedom of the blank page.
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I think the silences we have on some issues are inductive of the fact that we need to write about them more, but I think there are some issues you have to write in a sensitive way and in a way that respects the reality of the situation. If you can't do that, you should leave them alone.
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It's very hard to transgress; we have the furniture of transgression without the imagery and iconography to actually do it.
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The '90s was a decade of mundane market-consumer nothingness where there was nothing coming up from the streets; you just had someone in an office deciding what was cool.
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Everyone needs some kind of compelling drama in their life, basically.
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Sometimes I work purely 8-12 shifts, banging stuff into the computer. Other times, my office is like a scene from a detective movie, with Post-it Notes, plans, photographs all stuck on the walls and arrows going everywhere, and it's 4 A.M.
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In America, Miramax are using a 'New York Times' review that said 'Trainspotting' makes 'Kids' look like a 1960s episode of 'Sesame Street.'
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I used to sit on the Circle Line and go 'round and 'round and write.
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How can you be inspired by Cameron and Miliband? These guys are just drabness personified.
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There is nothing, really, that I wouldn't write about, and I do write about a lot of grim things.
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Writing is about culture and should be about everything. That's what makes it what it is.
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It's that kind of thing that readers have. I have it as a reader myself: that expectation that the writer will be that person. Then I meet other writers and realize that they're not.
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The older you get, the less physically and mentally robust you become.
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A lot of my characters are anti-heroes that became heroes.
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I go to the gym and work through a routine. But if you see someone with a personal trainer, you know they do 10 times more than you do. You give up your sense of identity. If you watch 'The Biggest Loser,' you see people give up their identity to become something else.
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I'm probably a natural uncle. I can take the kids out and have fun with them and look after them, and I can be Mr. Popular. But actually having to do the grind? That stuff just doesn't appeal at all.
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I didn't have any concept of Trainspotting being published. It was a selfish act. I did it for myself.
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The establishment, the newspapers, they try to create something called Scottish literature, but when people are actually going to write, they are not going to necessarily prescribe to that, they'll write what they feel.
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The first job of a writer is to be honest.
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It's really odd that I've got this kind of sullen reputation - I never saw myself that way.
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I've eaten ice cream from all over the world, but until you've tasted Graham's from Geneva, Illinois, you haven't had ice cream at all.