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" When I first started to get into writing, it was via music. I'd generate ideas for songs that would turn into stories, then they'd turn into novels. I was biased toward music. "

Irvine Welsh

Turn

Ideas

Music

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

" 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. "

" 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 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. "

" 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

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

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

" 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. "

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

" '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. "

" You're on your own with the book. And while you are writing fiction, you're spending all this time with people who don't actually exist, which is just madness. "

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

" I go to the gym and work through a routine. But if you see someone with a personal trainer, you know they do 10 times more than you do. You give up your sense of identity. If you watch 'The Biggest Loser,' you see people give up their identity to become something else. "

" I'm not really a mainstream novelist! "

" I just want to get on and tell stories. "

" 'Ulysses' is like a big box of tricks that you can dive into. Each time you read it, you find something new. "

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

Irvine Welsh

Plate

Writing

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

" 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

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

Irvine Welsh

Almost

Nothing

" I spend so much time on the screen when I am writing, the last thing you want to do is spend more time on the Internet looking at a screen. That's what I hate about all this technology. "

" I'm the worst employee in the world. I'll cheat and steal time and resources from my employer, although I'll con everybody into believing I'm essential to the operation. "

" Hugo Boss is my kind of label. "

" 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.' "

" I've been doing a bit of screenwriting and producing, and even a bit of directing. "

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

Irvine Welsh

Time

Want

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

" So many people have become divorced from the system, criminalised by their lifestyle. "

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

" 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. "