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" I created something that became a phenomenon without becoming a prisoner to it. "

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" Basically, particularly in Britain, it's a hegemonic thing that people who write tend to come from the leisure classes. They can afford the time and the books. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I'm not really a mainstream novelist! "

" When people start writing there is this idea that you have to get everything right first time, every sentence has to be perfect, every paragraph has to be perfect, every chapter has to be perfect, but what you're doing is not any kind of public show, until you're ready for it. "

" The first job of a writer is to be honest. "

" When a town doesn't have a book store, it is like something is missing, and unfortunately, fewer and fewer have them. "

" I wanted to capture the excitement of house music, almost like a four-four beat, and the best way to do that was to use a language that was rhythmic and performative. "

" 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. "

" 'True Detective' was the last show I got crazy about, with its 'Silence of the Lambs'-style landscape and those strip mall badlands of America. "

" Underground people pay a desperate toll finding out things nobody else has discovered yet. We run around like headless chickens looking for the next cultural fix to spiral around in before it gets appropriated somewhere else and becomes something it never was. There's this sort of one-upmanship in the underground. "

" 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. "

" I have a lot of successful musician pals, and as I get older, I find that I'm lucky to be a writer. I have great anonymity compared to musicians who sell the same number of records as I do books. "

" 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. "

" What happens when you get any kind of entrenched power is that it just becomes kind of corrupt and self-serving. "

" 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.' "

" A lot of my characters are anti-heroes that became heroes. "

" 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. "

" There's all this stuff that is happening in Edinburgh now, it's a sad attempt to create an Edinburgh society, similar to a London society, a highbrow literature celebrity society. "

" Hugo Boss is my kind of label. "

" People in Scotland want the parliament but don't give a toss about the elections. "

" Rebellion is always going to fascinate, as it's always packaged in a very safe way. "

" I don't perceive an audience at all when I write a book. It's pure self-indulgence. "

" What worries me is the professionalism of everything. "

Professionalism

" It's been a good thing for me to try and understand America. "

" I grew up in a place where everybody was a storyteller, but nobody wrote. It was that kind of Celtic, storytelling tradition: everybody would have a story at the pub or at parties, even at the clubs and raves. "

" 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. "

" I think a lot of people want me to be like the characters in the books: they want that kind of congruence. "

" It's part of me, Scotland. I'm still immersed in it even though I am not there. "

" Everyone needs some kind of compelling drama in their life, basically. "