Quote

Most people with good jobs, middle-class occupations, what have you, are only one pitfall away from social embarrassment and destitution. It's so precarious. Even salaried people in the West now feel this sense of being trapped, not having the freedom to strike out.

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
Social
Trapped
Salaried
Sense
Occupation
Pitfall
Away
Strikes
Destitution
Feel
West
Occupations
Feels
Middle
Pitfalls
Even
Class
Precarious
Good
Freedom
Embarrassment
People
Jobs
Strike

More quotes by Irvine Welsh

Image
Thoughts jostled for space in my crowded brain as I struggled to give them some order which might serve to motivate my listless life
Irvine Welsh
Image
If there's very strong civic unrest you can see a strong party of the Right emerging, whether it's UKIP [The UK Independence Party] or an even further-right party.
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
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
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
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
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
Once you've been with each other in a primal, shagging state, it's hard to talk about the weather.
Irvine Welsh
Image
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.
Irvine Welsh
Image
If you continue to transfer the wealth of the population of the planet to a very small amount of people, it becomes untenable at some point, a democracy, because people eventually will realize what's going on. You can only bulls - t people through kinds of media outlets for so long, and eventually you have to physically control them.
Irvine Welsh
Image
The first job of a writer is to be honest.
Irvine Welsh
Image
Love does not exist, it's like religion, the state wants you to believe in that kind of crap so they can control you, and f**k your head up.
Irvine Welsh
Image
Most people in the West are not politicized. They're the most simplistic consumers - they're animals, basically.
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'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
You have to let people express themselves in the way that they need to express themselves. You have to express yourself in any way possible, provided you're prepared to live with the consequences.
Irvine Welsh
Image
I'd always done a lot of sniffing glue as a kid. I was very interested in glue, and then I went to lager and speed, and I drifted into heroin because as a kid growing up everybody told me, 'don't smoke marijuana, it will kill you'.
Irvine Welsh
Image
Sometimes ah think that people become junkies just because they subconsciously crave a wee bit ay silence.
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
Just lock myself in a room, stop answering emails, stop answering the phone and I come out with something.
Irvine Welsh