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" The idea is not enough. And the most annoying thing for me as a writer is that people will come up to me and say, 'Hey, I've got a great idea for a book. I'm not a writer, but I've got a great story.' "

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" When you go away, you see where you come from in a different light. I see Scotland, and the rest of Britain, as much more exotic than I used to. "

Irvine Welsh

See

Rest

" I think what you call 'metropolitan America' - as in San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles - I think there's more awareness of the atypical, while in more traditional Britain, there's the kitchen-sink dramas and thrillers. It's more formulaic. "

" Music helps me immeasurably in the writing process. "

Irvine Welsh

Music

Helps

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

Irvine Welsh

Home

Sitting

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

" It's very hard to transgress; we have the furniture of transgression without the imagery and iconography to actually do it. "

" Historically, men have a hard time getting onboard with feminism, but I think that's changing. "

" When I started off with Trainspotting, it was the way the characters came to me. That's how they sounded to me. It seemed pretentious to sound any other way. I wasn't making any kind of political statement. "

" 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

" When I'm not writing, I read loads of fiction, but I've been writing quite constantly lately so I've been reading a lot of nonfiction - philosophy, religion, science, history, social or cultural studies. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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

Same

Always

" 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. "

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

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

" 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 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 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. "

" How can you be inspired by Cameron and Miliband? These guys are just drabness personified. "

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

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

" 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. "

" There is nothing, really, that I wouldn't write about, and I do write about a lot of grim things. "

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

" People should be able to express their culture without getting into all that chauvinistic thing. "

" Standard English is very imperialistic, controlled, and precise; it's not got a lot of funk or soul to it. "