You can only live in the world you ken. The rest is just wishful thinking or paranoia. — Irvine Welsh Paranoia Copy Share Image
Standard English is very imperialistic, controlled, and precise; it's not got a lot of funk or soul to it. — Irvine Welsh English Copy Share Image
People should be able to express their culture without getting into all that chauvinistic thing. — Irvine Welsh Chauvinistic Copy Share Image
I tend to read more nonfiction, really, because when I'm writing I don't like to read other fiction. — Irvine Welsh Books Copy Share Image
People in Scotland want the parliament but don't give a toss about the elections. — Irvine Welsh Copy Share Image
“downtown Johannesburg just looked like a large Muirhouse-in-the-sun to” — Irvine Welsh Johannesburg Copy Share Image
“The disease which racked his body was a sweetheart compared to the more obscure one that possessed his sick mind.” — Irvine Welsh Disease Copy Share Image
When you grow up in a place, you always think it's mundane. Then you travel around and live in different places, and… — Irvine Welsh Copy Share Image
'True Detective' was the last show I got crazy about, with its 'Silence of the Lambs'-style landscape and those strip mall badlands… — Irvine Welsh America Copy Share Image
The idea is not enough. And the most annoying thing for me as a writer is that people will come up to… — Irvine Welsh Books Copy Share Image
Choose life … I chose not to choose life. I chose something else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs… — Irvine Welsh Copy Share Image
When people write a novel, they want to have that reach and that impact. To get it with a first novel, you… — Irvine Welsh Books Copy Share Image
“-Fiona, this is my mate, Frank Begbie. Or Franco. Or Beggars. Or the Beggar Boy. Or the Generalissmo. Or Psychotic Bullying Prick.” — Irvine Welsh Copy Share Image
“Mates are a waste of fucking time. They are always ready to drag you down tae their level of social, sexual and… — Irvine Welsh Copy Share Image
If I stop working and publishing, and TV, and film and all that, I would be dead within a couple of weeks.… — Irvine Welsh Couple Copy Share Image
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 Collapse Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
“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 Adventure Copy Share Image
“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 Death Copy Share Image
“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 Choose life Copy Share Image
“Ah wis gaunny say thit Tommy hud a choice; wee Maria disnae. Aw that would huv done wis precipitate an argument aboot… — Irvine Welsh Choice Copy Share Image
“What interests me, personally, is work which in some way, speaks the truth to power…I don’t think we speak the truth to… — Irvine Welsh Ethics Copy Share Image
“Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc… — Irvine Welsh Choose life Copy Share Image
The idea of just sitting at home on Facebook worries me. I think we should all get out more. — Irvine Welsh Facebook Copy Share Image
I think a lot of people want me to be like the characters in the books: they want that kind of congruence. — Irvine Welsh Books Copy Share Image
Everyone needs some kind of compelling drama in their life, basically. — Irvine Welsh Copy Share Image
It wis like auld times, but in a sense that only served tae remind us ay how much things hud changed. — Irvine Welsh Copy Share Image
I tried to write 'Trainspotting' in standard English, but people weren't talking like that. — Irvine Welsh English people Copy Share Image
“take your best orgasm, multiply the feeling by twenty, and you're still fuckin miles off the pace” — Irvine Welsh Drugs Copy Share Image
Most people in the West are not politicized. They're the most simplistic consumers - they're animals, basically. — Irvine Welsh Animal Copy Share Image
The books that are really valuable are the books that evoke a sense of place. — Irvine Welsh Book Copy Share Image
There is nothing, really, that I wouldn't write about, and I do write about a lot of grim things. — Irvine Welsh Copy Share Image
In America, we've got to get back to these base principles of what democracy is. — Irvine Welsh America Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
Conservatives are giving up on democracy because it's not efficient. They want an autocratic regime. — Irvine Welsh Copy Share Image
“Schopenhauer was right: Life has to be about disillusionment stumbling inexorably towards the totally fucked.” — Irvine Welsh Disillusionment Copy Share Image
Now there is apparently a causal link between heroin addiction and vegetarianism. — Irvine Welsh Addiction Copy Share Image
“It's easy tae be philosophical when some other cunt's got shite fir blood.” — Irvine Welsh Copy Share Image
“I was used to heat but this place was so dry the trees were bribing the dogs.” — Irvine Welsh Dogs Copy Share Image
