Irvine Welsh

You can't lie to your soul.

— Irvine Welsh

“Nae cunt kens”

— Irvine Welsh

How did it make you feel?

— Irvine Welsh

“Same rules apply.”

— Irvine Welsh

I enjoy the freedom of the blank page.

— Irvine Welsh

“I reach into my bag and I pull out my claw hammer.”

— Irvine Welsh

I feel like I've exhausted guys and male friendships.

— Irvine Welsh

“We all see what we want to see.”

— Irvine Welsh

I'm not running away, I'm moving on.

— Irvine Welsh

Music helps me immeasurably in the writing process.

— Irvine Welsh

I'm not really a mainstream novelist!

— Irvine Welsh

There is a kind of mysticism to writing.

— Irvine Welsh

I'm the worst employer I could wish for because I push myself hard.

— Irvine Welsh

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

— Irvine Welsh

Standard English is very imperialistic, controlled, and precise; it's not got a lot of funk or soul to it.

— Irvine Welsh

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

— Irvine Welsh

I tend to read more nonfiction, really, because when I'm writing I don't like to read other fiction.

— Irvine Welsh

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

— Irvine Welsh

You can only live in the world you ken. The rest is just wishful thinking or paranoia.

— Irvine Welsh

“Gillman smiles, in the cold manner of an assassin. It's like looking in the mirror.”

— Irvine Welsh

It's very hard to transgress; we have the furniture of transgression without the imagery and iconography to actually do it.

— 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

I'm quite comfortable now with being misunderstood. I don't really feel the need either to pander to it or to refute it.…

— 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

Love does not exist, it's like religion, the state wants you to believe in that kind of crap so they can control…

— Irvine Welsh

Thoughts jostled for space in my crowded brain as I struggled to give them some order which might serve to motivate my…

— Irvine Welsh

Sometimes I work purely 8-12 shifts, banging stuff into the computer. Other times, my office is like a scene from a detective…

— Irvine Welsh

I left Edinburgh to follow the London punk scene in 1978, singing and playing guitar in various bands. My income was sporadic,…

— Irvine Welsh

The dead man is on the trolley and the woman collapses across his chest. That's what the ghouls want a shufti at,…

— Irvine Welsh

“Bit it's what bein a hard man is aw aboot; its a journey, a fucking self destructive quest tae find yir limits,…

— 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

“People think it's all about misery and desperation and death and all that shite, which is not to be ignored, but what…

— Irvine Welsh

“Society invents a spurious convoluted logic tea absorb and change people whae's behaviour is outside its mainstream. Suppose that ah ken all…

— Irvine Welsh

Everybody in my family were great storytellers. My dad and his brothers would just go on and on; they could tell amazing…

— Irvine Welsh

“It was Begbie who ensured he could never return. He had done what he wanted to do. He could now never go…

— Irvine Welsh

“Society invents a spurious convoluted logic tae absorb and change people whae's behaviour is outside its mainstream. Suppose that ah ken aw…

— Irvine Welsh

“With the gift of faith, we move on.”

— Irvine Welsh

Are you asking me or telling me?

— Irvine Welsh

Hugo Boss is my kind of label.

— Irvine Welsh

A lot of my characters are anti-heroes that became heroes.

— Irvine Welsh