Irvine Welsh
Irvine Welsh
Irvine Welshis a Scottish novelist, playwright and short story writer. He is recognised for his novel Trainspotting, which was later made into a film of the same name. His work is characterised by a raw Scots dialect and brutal depiction of Edinburgh life. He has also written plays and screenplays, and directed several short films...
NationalityScottish
ProfessionPlaywright
Date of Birth27 September 1958
definitions cases welsh
By definition, you have to live until you die. Better to make that life as complete and enjoyable an experience as possible, in case death is shite, which I suspect it will be.
real careers ideas
We start off with high hopes, then we bottle it. We realise that we’re all going to die, without really finding out the big answers. We develop all those long-winded ideas which just interpret the reality of our lives in different ways, without really extending our body of worthwhile knowledge, about the big things, the real things. Basically, we live a short disappointing life; and then we die. We fill up our lives with shite, things like careers and relationships to delude ourselves that it isn’t all totally pointless.
weather shagging states
Once you've been with each other in a primal, shagging state, it's hard to talk about the weather.
graduation art writing
I 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 to find information.
running moving running-away
I'm not running away, I'm moving on.
beautiful sweet want
There's that horrible-beautiful moment, that bitter-sweet impasse where you know that somebody is bullshitting you but they're doing it with such panache and conviction...no, it's because they say exactly what you want to hear, at that point in time.
weed growing-up kids
I'd always done a lot of sniffing glue as a kid. I was very interested in glue, and then I went to lager and speed, and I drifted into heroin because as a kid growing up everybody told me, 'don't smoke marijuana, it will kill you'.
order space giving
I was anti-everything and everyone. I didn't want people around me. This aversion was not some big crippling anxiety; merely a mature recognition of my own psychological vulnerability and my lack of suitability as a companion. Thoughts jostled for space in my crowded brain as i struggled to give them some order which might serve to motivate my listless life.
behaviour realizing precedent
It's only now that I realize that behaviour always has a context and precedents, it's what you do rather than what you are, although we often never recognise that context or understand what these precedents are.
pain book reading
It was the books I started reading. It was the music I started listening to. It was the television I started watching. I found myself thinking again. I tried to stop because it was only causing pain. I couldn't. Wen all this is in your head it has to come out into your life. If it doesn't, you get crushed. I'm not going to get crushed.
pages blank enjoy
I enjoy the freedom of the blank page.
honesty lying soul
You can't lie to your soul.
writing fiction-and-nonfiction nonfiction
I tend to read more nonfiction, really, because when I'm writing I don't like to read other fiction.
disaster grew grew-up
I grew up in what was not so much a familyas a genetic disaster.