Will Self
Will Self
William Woodard Selfis an English novelist, journalist, political commentator and television personality...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth26 September 1961
childhood age peculiar
Just as the blurring between childhood and adulthood has produced the kidult, so the stretching of middle into old age has fostered another peculiar chimera: septuagenarians with apoptosis sporting the depeche mode.
children addiction people
Sometimes, when I hear people without experience of addiction blame addicts for their behaviour, I feel like saying to them: 'You simply don't understand - how can a child be held responsible for doing such a dreadful thing to himself?' But then again, at other times I have to acknowledge: it was done wilfully.
space squares doubt
Without a shadow of doubt, Trafalgar Square has to be one of the most crap urban public spaces in the world.
photography views may
Whatever respect photography may once have deserved is now superfluous in view of its own superfluity.
jobs years two
The only proper suit-and-tie job I've had in my life was the two years in the late 1980s when I ran a small corporate publishing company. I even had a Ford Sierra!
tunnels trash ends
I'm going to end up like one of those old weirdos who lives in a network of tunnels burrowed through trash - yet I do not fear this.
writing views might
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 in view - whether it's a reader, a prize or a sale.
shapes landscape enjoy
I enjoy doing very high mileages, partly out of masochism and also because I like to feel the shape of the landscape.
thrones behinds
The éminence cerise, the bolster behind the throne.
fiction way action
The whole aesthetics of computers very much feeds into my OCD. They fill my head with obsessionalities and my actions become very repetitive. It seems quite inimical to the dreamy state out of which fiction comes which seems so much less causally repetitive than the way one works on computers.
thinking cities fundamentals
I think the fundamental apprehension is that the city's an organism of some form, rather than being governed from above.
may discrimination uncomfortable
As a species, we're addicted to the facile discrimination involved in saying that something or phenomenon is either 'this' or 'that' - how much more uncomfortable that it may well be 'the other'.
writing life-is solitary
The writing life is essentially one of solitary confinement - if you can't deal with this, you needn't apply.
real writing successful
You know that sickening feeling of inadequacy and over-exposure you feel when you look upon your own empurpled prose? Relax into the awareness that this ghastly sensation will never, ever leave you, no matter how successful and publicly lauded you become. It is intrinsic to the real business of writing and should be cherished.