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" 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.' "

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" 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

Own

Fantasy

People

" I would never have written 'Trainspotting' if it hadn't been for this album, 'Raw Power,' and 'Metallic K.O.' "

" It's different in Scotland. People who come to readings are more interested in literature as such, but the readership in general is really quite diverse. It's a cliche, but it's said that people who read my books don't read any other books, and you do get that element. "

" Politicians are so... detested; they don't actually walk amongst people now. "

" What worries me is the professionalism of everything. "

Irvine Welsh

Professionalism

Worries

" 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. "

" 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 just write the stuff I want to at the time, what feels right for me. "

Irvine Welsh

Time

Want

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Writing has been handed to me on a plate. "

Irvine Welsh

Plate

Writing

" You can't satirise darts, because it's hyper-real as it is; there's already enough over-the-top madness to it. "

" You know what it's like: you don't want to read your old books again. All you can see are the flaws, what you would do differently. "

" 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. "

" I'm not really a mainstream novelist! "

" 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. "

" The older you get, the less physically and mentally robust you become. "

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

" 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. "

Irvine Welsh

You

Someone

" We want to feel hyper-alive, and it's like, the more cartoonish and grotesque the level we can operate at, the better. It's like the world we live in has become quite safe in a lot of ways, and it has become harder to genuinely transgress. But the desire to transgress is a real feeling. "

" Writers in Britain aren't really celebrities. You become kind of a darling of a small set. "

" 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

Political

People

" I tend to read more nonfiction, really, because when I'm writing I don't like to read other fiction. "

Irvine Welsh

Nonfiction

Writing

" Sometimes a book influences me because it winds me up. There'll be something that gets under my skin and makes me think that I can do better. "

" 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 think young writers should get other degrees first, social sciences, arts degrees or even business degrees. What you learn is research skills, a necessity because a lot of writing is about trying to find information. "

" It's really odd that I've got this kind of sullen reputation - I never saw myself that way. "

" Middle-class people worry a lot about money. They worry a lot about job security, and they do a lot of nine-to-five stuff. "

" 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. "

" 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. "