Some people are easier to love when you don't have to be around them.

I think Scotland's got its own issues, in some ways similar to Northern Ireland with sectarianism, which has been a long-running sore. All the issues of land ownership, development resources, poverty, alcoholism and violence, all these things.

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.

In the cross-over, you get to a point where you realize that you've got all this genetic inheritance, and you've got all this social conditioning, but there is a point where you do have to make a choice, and that's the optimist in me: you have the freedom to make a choice about how you are going to be, and what you're going to do.

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

I love doubt in a woman. It's nearly as sexy as determination.

I've always felt really good about England. I've always felt really, really good about Britain.