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" I make out a play list for every character and buy the records they would listen to; it helps me find their personas. What they play, where they stay, who they lay, is my matrix for character development. "

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" Words should have the power to inform and to move, not the power to send people scurrying away. But if you attach that much emotional energy to a word, it gives people the power to hurt each other. "

Irvine Welsh

Power

People

Hurt

" 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. "

" The idea of just sitting at home on Facebook worries me. I think we should all get out more. "

Irvine Welsh

Home

Sitting

" I tried to write 'Trainspotting' in standard English, but people weren't talking like that. "

Irvine Welsh

Standard

Talking

" I'm always watching people over a short time frame, putting them in an extreme position. Sometimes you don't see the humanity in a person because the time frame is so short and the circumstance so extreme. "

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

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

Irvine Welsh

Town

Book

" I feel like I've exhausted guys and male friendships. "

" I'm not really a mainstream novelist! "

" 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. "

" What worries me is the professionalism of everything. "

Irvine Welsh

Professionalism

Worries

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

" In America, Miramax are using a 'New York Times' review that said 'Trainspotting' makes 'Kids' look like a 1960s episode of 'Sesame Street.' "

" 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. "

" 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

Yourself

Circumstances

" 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. "

" I'm a failed musician rather than a successful writer. "

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

" 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. "

" When you grow up in a place, you always think it's mundane. Then you travel around and live in different places, and you realise that you've got it the wrong way 'round. "

" If you're going to do something that's going to cause offence to people, you're always going to get a reaction. "

" It's like nothing's really happening. Our culture is almost dead. "

Irvine Welsh

Almost

Nothing

" People either think I'm this totally savage, idiot-savant genius guy who's lucked out or they think I'm a super-manipulative crafty businessman, this kind of MBA guy who's spotted a gap in the market and knows how to create a product for it. It's flattering, but I've not got that much of a gameplan. "

" 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. "

" Writing is about culture and should be about everything. That's what makes it what it is. "

" Filmmaking is a much more collaborative thing than literature, so you know you're going to be working with a group of people at the start. You know it's going to be a compromise. "

" I come up with a blurb at the beginning, but the book will always be completely different by the time it's finished. They say, 'Where's the book you were going to write?' And I say, 'Forget about it. It doesn't exist.' "

" 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. "

" '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. "