Irvine Welsh

“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 storyte...”

“I grew up in a place where everybody was a storyteller, but nobody wrote. It was that kind of Celtic, storytelling tradition: everybody would have a story at the pub or at parties, even at t...”

“I'm trying to make really flawed characters that have got redeeming features so people can say, 'I don't really like that character, but I can understand a bit where they've come from.'”

“When I left school at 16, I became an apprentice television and radio technician, and was paid £17 a week, which was decent money in 1976. But the job turned sour when I gave myself an elect...”

“I've been doing a bit of screenwriting and producing, and even a bit of directing.”

“What happens when you get any kind of entrenched power is that it just becomes kind of corrupt and self-serving.”

“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...”

“It's really odd that I've got this kind of sullen reputation - I never saw myself that way.”

“I'm always watching people over a short time frame, putting them in an extreme position. Sometimes you don't see the humanity in a person because the time frame is so short and the circumsta...”

“'True Detective' was the last show I got crazy about, with its 'Silence of the Lambs'-style landscape and those strip mall badlands of America.”

“'Ulysses' is like a big box of tricks that you can dive into. Each time you read it, you find something new.”