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.

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.

When I'm not writing, I read loads of fiction, but I've been writing quite constantly lately so I've been reading a lot of nonfiction - philosophy, religion, science, history, social or cultural studies.

There's nothing worse than a violent beating from an unremarkable person. Physical violence with someone is too much like shagging them. Too much id involved.

I think [Ecstasy] was a really good stab. It wasn't my strongest book or my strongest material, but they wanted to make a kinda "rave culture" movie.

Bad luck is usually transmitted by close proximity to habitual sufferers.

[Margaret Thatcher] was the invisible hand behind it. Without that, there'd be no Trainspotting and no Filth.