Modernism has a reputation for being a forbidding phenomenon: its visual arts disconcertingly non-representational, its literary efforts devoid of the consolations of plot and character - even its films, it's argued, fall well short of that true desideratum: entertainment. — Will Self Copy Share Image
As for critical writing about modernism, its moments of lucidity are but fulgurations illuminating the dark and incomprehensible landscape of its subject's unabashed difficulty. — Will Self Copy Share Image
“As my voice died away I became conscious of the voice of another woman two tables away. I couldn't hear what she was saying… — Will Self Copy Share Image
That tertiary education is under a sustained assault by a political and - it often seems - social consensus that equates all education with… — Will Self Copy Share Image
I'm an anarchist. I'm implacably opposed to heirarchical systems of power and control. I also mistrust crowds, as they often operate according to their… — Will Self Copy Share Image
What fiction offers us is an intimacy shorn of the messy contingencies of human existence - gender, race, class or age. Those moments of… — Will Self Copy Share Image
I'd rather fiddle with my phone for precious seconds than neglect an apostrophe; I'd rather insert a word laboriously keyed out than resort to… — Will Self Copy Share Image
I'm very happy for whatever plaudits might come the way of my work, but I never ever sit down to write x with y… — Will Self Copy Share Image
As a writer, I'm not convinced that we are the best equipped to understand how we go about the business of literary production. — Will Self Copy Share Image
“I explained to him - as I withdrew the cup, ripped open the sachet and dunked the tea bag - that tea was an… — Will Self Copy Share Image
There is something mysteriously powerful that can happen when young, inchoate minds come into contact with older and more worldly ones in a spirit… — Will Self Copy Share Image
It would seem that I, who never could make much sense of physics when I was at school, have now gained a strong sense… — Will Self Copy Share Image
“…with the morbid realisation that his sexual being was a dull thing, a lifeless thing, a mass-produced marionette with chipped paint and fraying strings” — Will Self Copy Share Image
A creative life cannot be sustained by approval any more than it can be destroyed by criticism. — Will Self Copy Share Image
I don't think in terms of that bizarre tautology 'value for money' in my literary and journalistic work - and nor will I in… — Will Self Copy Share Image
