Quotes by Irvine Welsh

“Ah sortay jist laugh whin some cats say that racism's an English thing and we're aw Jock Tamson's bairn up here . . . it's likesay pure shite man, gadges talkin through their erses.”

“Ah remember walkin along Princes Street wi Spud, we both hate walkin along that hideous street, deadened by tourists and shoppers, the twin curse ay modern capitalism.”

“What interests me, personally, is work which in some way, speaks the truth to powerI dont think we speak the truth to power for powers ear, but for the ear and the imagination of future generations...”

“Leave it man. Squirrels botherin nae cunt likesay! Ah hate it the wey Marks intae hurtin animals its wrong man. Ye cannae love yirsel if ye want tae hurt things like that ah mean what hope is thir?...”

“He feels the bleakness crawling into his skull; Franco breaths in steadily, trying to tune in all out, that pressure on your brain, eroding focus, diverting the flow of thought down old ruinous can...”

“think young writers should get other degrees first, social sciences, arts degrees or even business degrees. What you learn is research skills, a necessity because a lot of writing is about trying t...”

“The town is mobbed out with Saturday shoppers looking for Christmas bargains. You can almost breathe in the raw greed which hangs in the air like vapour. As the late afternoon darkness falls, the l...”

“Two choices; one: tough it oot, back in the room, two: phone that cunt Forrester and go tae Muirhoose, get fucked aboot and ripped oaf wi some crap gear. Nae contest.In twenty minutes it wis: Muir...”

“Ah'm thinking about shoutin 'stop' but ah could never turn away at this point. If smack is as addictive as they say, then ah'm already aw the junky ah'm ever gaunny be.”

“--Thing is though, Spud, whin yir intae skag, that's it. That's aw yuv goat tae worry aboot. Ken Billy, ma brar, likes? He's jist signed up tae go back intae the fuckin army. He's gaun tae fucking ...”

“We dont really communicate []. We talk all right, talk in that strange language weve evolved for the purposes of avoiding communication. That non-language weve created. Perhaps its a sign that civi...”

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

“take your best orgasm, multiply the feeling by twenty, and you're still fuckin miles off the pace”

“But even Es and cocaine, over the years they blow holes in your brain, rob you of your memories, your past. Which is fair enough, convenient even.”

“Even as I'm shoveling up my hooter, I realize the sad truth. Coke bores me, It bores us all. We're jaded cunts, in a scene we hate, a city we hate, pretending that we're at the center of the univer...”

“I was used to heat but this place was so dry the trees were bribing the dogs.”

“A standing prick hath no conscience. And if that standing prick is attached to Bruce Robertson then it hath less than no conscience. You can't afford a conscience in this life, that has become a lu...”

“The '90s was a decade of mundane market-consumer nothingness where there was nothing coming up from the streets you just had someone in an office deciding what was cool. ”

“I just love the weather. I live on Miami Beach, which is all boutique hotels and cocktails. I do sometimes go along to smart parties in my white suit, but I wouldn't really recognise any famous peo...”

“Everybody in my family were great storytellers. My dad and his brothers would just go on and on; they could tell amazing stories. I think it was something to do with the Celtic, oral storytelling t...”