The first of the Trainspotting crew to die. Out of the five of them like, Begbie, Renton, Spud, Sick Boy and [Margaret] Thatcher. Who'd have thunk she'd have been the first to go? She was the invisible author of the book, really. She created the conditions and the hubris whereby that whole culture flourished.

Good luck to progressive candidates in U.S. Senate elections against the usual rich, white, racist, women-hating pricks they run against.

I think there is a natural thing that you feel when you've written something taboo because you just don't want to expose the people you're close to.

Writing is about culture and should be about everything. That's what makes it what it is.

People are really excited by Obama abroad because he seems to be the first American presidential candidate who has ambition to go out of the country. In a sense, with the power of globalization, you are kind of electing the leader of the Western world to an extent.

Sometimes ah think that people become junkies just because they subconsciously crave a wee bit ay silence.

The first of the Trainspotting crew to die. Out of the five of them like, Begbie, Renton, Spud, Sick Boy and [Margaret] Thatcher. Who'd have thunk she'd have been the first to go? She was the invisible author of the book, really. She created the conditions and the hubris whereby that whole culture flourished.