People Quotes by Irvine Welsh

Most people in the West are not politicized. They're the most simplistic consumers - they're animals, basically.

— Irvine Welsh

I tried to write 'Trainspotting' in standard English, but people weren't talking like that.

— Irvine Welsh

Middle-class people worry a lot about money. They worry a lot about job security, and they do a lot of nine-to-five stuff.

— Irvine Welsh

I think a lot of people want me to be like the characters in the books: they want that kind of congruence.

— Irvine Welsh

If you're going to do something that's going to cause offence to people, you're always going to get a reaction.

— Irvine Welsh

People think if you're working class, there has to be some fascist element underneath.

— Irvine Welsh

You write people as human beings first and then the gender specific stuff second.

— Irvine Welsh

Some people are easier to love when you don't have to be around them.

— Irvine Welsh

I go to the gym and work through a routine. But if you see someone with a personal trainer, you know they…

— Irvine Welsh

I'm not really interested in courting controversy, but I am interested in exploring issues that other people would deem to be controversial.

— Irvine Welsh

Words should have the power to inform and to move, not the power to send people scurrying away. But if you attach…

— Irvine Welsh

In civic life, I think that's where you can debate what is good taste and what is acceptable to other people, and…

— Irvine Welsh

I'm always watching people over a short time frame, putting them in an extreme position. Sometimes you don't see the humanity in…

— Irvine Welsh

Basically, particularly in Britain, it's a hegemonic thing that people who write tend to come from the leisure classes. They can afford…

— Irvine Welsh

I think there is a natural thing that you feel when you've written something taboo because you just don't want to expose…

— Irvine Welsh

People are really excited by Obama abroad because he seems to be the first American presidential candidate who has ambition to go…

— Irvine Welsh

The thing about drugs is that it [dealing] gives people an income to deal with, and it also gives people a compelling…

— Irvine Welsh

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…

— Irvine Welsh

I think that Europe has to get its act together very quickly. The Belgian guy who's leading the negotiations against Brexit, he…

— Irvine Welsh

Chicago is seen as everything that Trump detests, which I think kind of reflects really well on the city I think, because…

— Irvine Welsh

If you continue to transfer the wealth of the population of the planet to a very small amount of people, it becomes…

— Irvine Welsh

Underground people pay a desperate toll finding out things nobody else has discovered yet. We run around like headless chickens looking for…

— Irvine Welsh

We were looking for someone who could get the film [Filth] made at that kind of level, with the finance we wanted,…

— Irvine Welsh

We have to concentrate back on: Where is the money going? Where's it been going for the last thirty years? How do…

— Irvine Welsh

We have to accept that capitalism is coming to an end. We can't provide paid employment for people, all the industries with…

— Irvine Welsh

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

— Irvine Welsh

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

— Irvine Welsh

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

— Irvine Welsh

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

— Irvine Welsh

In my flat in Chicago, I've got this big room with an office in the corner and a balcony so I can…

— Irvine Welsh

Sometimes ah think that people become junkies just because they subconsciously crave a wee bit ay silence.

— Irvine Welsh

You're never going to get beyond other people's preconceptions of what you are and what you're about.

— Irvine Welsh

People love talking about their jobs. Take them out, buy them lunch or take them for a beer and they'll talk about…

— Irvine Welsh

Most middle-class people I know don't really live like me. Middle-class people worry a lot about money. They worry a lot about…

— Irvine Welsh

You have to let people express themselves in the way that they need to express themselves. You have to express yourself in…

— Irvine Welsh

The idea is not enough. And the most annoying thing for me as a writer is that people will come up to…

— Irvine Welsh

There's something about the modern era where it's very hard to transgress - we're all so online, easier to track by mobile…

— Irvine Welsh

It's different in Scotland. People who come to readings are more interested in literature as such, but the readership in general is…

— Irvine Welsh

When people write a novel, they want to have that reach and that impact. To get it with a first novel, you…

— Irvine Welsh

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…

— Irvine Welsh