Books Quote by Will Self

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

“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

That tertiary education is under a sustained assault by a political and - it often seems - social consensus that equates all education with…

— Will Self

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

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

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

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

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

“I explained to him - as I withdrew the cup, ripped open the sachet and dunked the tea bag - that tea was an…

— Will Self

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

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

Drug use and procrastination often go hand in tourniquet.

— Will Self

“…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

A creative life cannot be sustained by approval any more than it can be destroyed by criticism.

— Will Self

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