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I tried to write 'Trainspotting' in standard English, but people weren't talking like that.
Irvine Welsh -
I'm working on a screenplay right now for the BBC, but I hope to have the decks cleared soon so I can get into the studio with my pals and put down some more tracks, try to get a strong dance single together.
Irvine Welsh
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Everybody that writes has their own area of inquiry. And mine has always been kind of, why is it that when life can be so hard and difficult, we compound it by self-sabotage, doing terrible things? That's always been my main area of inquiry, and it does lead you to dark places.
Irvine Welsh -
I left Edinburgh to follow the London punk scene in 1978, singing and playing guitar in various bands. My income was sporadic, so I did anything to eke out some kind of subsistence - laying down slabs, working as a kitchen porter.
Irvine Welsh -
It's very difficult to be objective about yourself and your own circumstances, but one thing I do know about is that I grew up surrounded by storytellers.
Irvine Welsh -
A lot of people pulled me up after 'Trainspotting' for its absence of politics, but the argument I make is that the absence of politics is political as well.
Irvine Welsh -
Ah jist shrugged, - Well, as one anarchist plumber sais tae the other: smash the cistern.
Irvine Welsh -
Writing is such a good thing to do because you can't really get bored with it. If you're bored with writing, you're bored with life.
Irvine Welsh
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That beats any meat injection … that beats any fuckin cock in the world … Ali gasps, completely serious. It unnerves us tae the extent that ah feel ma ain genitals through ma troosers tae see if they're still thair.
Irvine Welsh -
You can't just have stuff that is free and escapist, you have to have stuff that is confrontational as well. You need stuff that is mystical but you need the realism too.
Irvine Welsh -
I would never have written 'Trainspotting' if it hadn't been for this album, 'Raw Power,' and 'Metallic K.O.'
Irvine Welsh -
I'm trying to make really flawed characters that have got redeeming features so people can say, 'I don't really like that character, but I can understand a bit where they've come from.'
Irvine Welsh -
Before I started writing, I'd never read much fiction. I was more interested in non-fiction. I'm taking the same approach to theatre: I can operate from a position of ignorance and make up my own rules instead of being bound by customs and practice.
Irvine Welsh -
The cultural war of words has actually been won by the most dispossessed people in the Western world, the urban American blacks.
Irvine Welsh
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So many people have become divorced from the system, criminalised by their lifestyle.
Irvine Welsh -
I just write the stuff I want to at the time, what feels right for me.
Irvine Welsh -
'Ulysses' is like a big box of tricks that you can dive into. Each time you read it, you find something new.
Irvine Welsh -
We've become used to processing images that are part of the non-linear narrative theory. I think there's a thinner line between fantasy and normality. People spend much more time in their own heads now. There's so much to conform to, so many influences coming at you.
Irvine Welsh -
Boxing gives you such a good workout, although I've stopped sparring. When your hand speed goes, you're going to get caught, and you can't afford to take cumulative smacks on the chops when you're a writer.
Irvine Welsh -
Hugo Boss is my kind of label.
Irvine Welsh
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Music helps me immeasurably in the writing process.
Irvine Welsh -
I'd always liked to read, but when I picked up books I wasn't getting the same kind of excitement from them that I was from going out clubbing. I wanted to get the same kind of feel.
Irvine Welsh -
Ah wonder if anybody this side of the Atlantic has ever bought a baseball bat with playing baseball in mind.
Irvine Welsh -
There is a kind of mysticism to writing.
Irvine Welsh