Quote

I didn't have any concept of Trainspotting being published. It was a selfish act. I did it for myself.

Irvine Welsh

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Irvine Welsh
Age: 66
Born: 1958
Born: September 27
Author
Film Actor
Novelist
Playwright
Prosaist
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
Writer
Didn
Welsh
Published
Selfishness
Concept
Selfish
Concepts

More quotes by Irvine Welsh

Image
I love doubt in a woman. It's nearly as sexy as determination.
Irvine Welsh
Image
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.
Irvine Welsh
Image
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.
Irvine Welsh
Image
It's only now that I realize that behaviour always has a context and precedents, it's what you do rather than what you are, although we often never recognise that context or understand what these precedents are.
Irvine Welsh
Image
I'm quite comfortable now with being misunderstood. I don't really feel the need either to pander to it or to refute it. Just go on, and do what I've got to do.
Irvine Welsh
Image
I think just getting up and getting to the desk is a big thing. If you can do that, you're in the zone because there're so many distractions that can stop you. From my bedroom to my office isn't really that far, but I have to go via the kitchen and there's so many things that can stop me and interrupt me.
Irvine Welsh
Image
In civic life, I think that's where you can debate what is good taste and what is acceptable to other people, and what's gonna offend people. Do that there, but leave it out of art, because art is the one frontier that shouldn't have restraints put on it.
Irvine Welsh
Image
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
Image
Conservatives are giving up on democracy because it's not efficient. They want an autocratic regime.
Irvine Welsh
Image
But even Es and cocaine, over the years they blow holes in your brain, rob you of your memories, your past. Which is fair enough, convenient even.
Irvine Welsh
Image
The dead man is on the trolley and the woman collapses across his chest. That's what the ghouls want a shufti at, like at that Princess Diana's funeral, they want to scrutinise those who really knew her, to drink the misery out of their faces.
Irvine Welsh
Image
I think UKIP [ UK Independence Party] and the BNP [British National Party] are very, very English concerns. If they gather strength they're going to add to this schism between Scotland and England.
Irvine Welsh
Image
You can argue about violence. It's destructive, but people are inherently violent in a lot of ways. Abusing drugs is always bad for people and bad for society, but the whole notion of festival is tied up with intoxication.
Irvine Welsh
Image
Iggy Pop looks right at me as he sings the line: 'America takes drugs in psychic defence' only he changes 'America' to 'Scatlin', and defines us mair accurately in a single sentence than all the others have ever done.
Irvine Welsh
Image
It was the books I started reading. It was the music I started listening to. It was the television I started watching. I found myself thinking again. I tried to stop because it was only causing pain. I couldn't. Wen all this is in your head it has to come out into your life. If it doesn't, you get crushed. I'm not going to get crushed.
Irvine Welsh
Image
[Margaret Thatcher] was the invisible hand behind it. Without that, there'd be no Trainspotting and no Filth.
Irvine Welsh
Image
I can't stand still I find it very difficult to sit around and do nothing. I've got to have projects on the go because the devil makes work for idle hands. I've got to be going forward all the time.
Irvine Welsh
Image
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.
Irvine Welsh
Image
I can see why the Russians love Robert Burns, I think that Russians and Koreans have a very similar outlook to Scots.
Irvine Welsh
Image
The inspiration can come in such small ways that if you sit there just waiting for the big epiphany you'll sit there for the rest of your life.
Irvine Welsh