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The first job of a writer is to be honest.

Irvine Welsh

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Irvine Welsh
Age: 66
Born: 1958
Born: September 27
Author
Film Actor
Novelist
Playwright
Prosaist
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
Writer
Honest
Literature
Jobs
Firsts
First
Writer

More quotes by Irvine Welsh

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In the cross-over, you get to a point where you realize that you've got all this genetic inheritance, and you've got all this social conditioning, but there is a point where you do have to make a choice, and that's the optimist in me: you have the freedom to make a choice about how you are going to be, and what you're going to do.
Irvine Welsh
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Ah wonder if anybody this side of the Atlantic has ever bought a baseball bat with playing baseball in mind.
Irvine Welsh
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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I didn't have any concept of Trainspotting being published. It was a selfish act. I did it for myself.
Irvine Welsh
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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
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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.
Irvine Welsh
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I feel like I've exhausted guys and male friendships.
Irvine Welsh
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[Ecstasy] had its flaws, but again it was shot on a low budget, and they did well. It's not in the same league as Filth.
Irvine Welsh
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The books that are really valuable are the books that evoke a sense of place.
Irvine Welsh
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How did it make you feel?
Irvine Welsh
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When I go to places and do book tours, I don't really like doing traditional bookshops. It's nice to walk people through something instead of just standing up in a bookstore.
Irvine Welsh
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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.
Irvine Welsh
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You've got first-generation Americans here who are going to be poorer than their parents. That's never happened in the States before, and it's going to have massive social repercussions here.
Irvine Welsh
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I don't think that the Scots are happy to drift into Britain becoming the poorest of the poor, sub-American 51st state.
Irvine Welsh
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Ah suppose man, ah'm too much ay a perfectionist, ken? It's likesay, if things go a bit dodgy, ah jist cannae be bothered, y'know.
Irvine Welsh
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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