Irvine Welsh

lie soul

“You can't lie to your soul.”

― Irvine Welsh

choose life job career family television

“Choose a life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television. Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers... Choose DSY and wondering who the fuck you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit crushing game shows, stucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away in the end of it all, pishing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brats you spawned to replace yourself, choose your future. Choose life... But why would I want to do a thing like that?”

― Irvine Welsh

live die life enjoyable

“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.”

― Irvine Welsh

running away moving on

“I'm not running away, I'm moving on.”

― Irvine Welsh

world unhabitable robot android

"We made the world uninhabitable for ourselves and it can only be inhabited by robots and androids."

― Irvine Welsh

high hopes answer shite career pointless

"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."

― Irvine Welsh

America USA basic principle democracy

"In America, we've got to get back to these base principles of what democracy is."

― Irvine Welsh

America USA social democracy Britain

"n America I think we need to move towards a social democracy, European-style basically, and I think that in Britain we do as well. The thing here is that we have to accept that capitalism is coming to an end."

― Irvine Welsh

capitalism end employment profit conceptualist society

"We have to accept that capitalism is coming to an end. We can't provide paid employment for people, all the industries with technology are counter-intuitive to profit, and we have to have a transition to the conceptualist society. The only way to do it fairly is as a social democracy, a radical social democracy, which isn't compromised by neo-liberalism and isn't compromised by the rich, and isn't compromised by hegemonic, authoritarian interests: to have that balance between the government, the private sector, and then the individual citizens again."

― Irvine Welsh

warrior class war battle sexes tribe brain-dead soulless

"I'm more of a warrior than you'll ever be. I believe in the class war. I believe in the battle of the sexes. I believe in my tribe. I believe in the righteous, intelligent clued-up section of the working classes against the brain-dead moronic masses as well as the mediocre, soulless bourgeoisie."

― Irvine Welsh

media cheerleader populist sorry state critical

"If the media is just a cheerleader for an authoritarian populist, who isn't that popular, then we're in a sorry state. The media has to be critical - it has to scrutinize it, it has to call out things."

― Irvine Welsh

writer honest

"The first job of a writer is to be honest."

― Irvine Welsh

wealth planet people bullshit physically control

"If you continue to transfer the wealth of the population of the planet to a very small amount of people, it becomes untenable at some point, a democracy, because people eventually will realize what’s going on. You can only bulls–t people through kinds of media outlets for so long, and eventually you have to physically control them."

― Irvine Welsh

social democracy neo-liberalism balance government private

"The only way to do it fairly is as a social democracy, a radical social democracy, which isn’t compromised by neo-liberalism and isn’t compromised by the rich, and isn’t compromised by hegemonic, authoritarian interests: to have that balance between the government, the private sector, and then the individual citizens again. We’ve got to get back to these base principles of what democracy is."

― Irvine Welsh