Nothing is covered adequately by the BBC. The BBC has become the biggest disappointment - they're just so terrified. And in a way it's not their fault: the parties have used them as a political football.

The celebration of death is not a good thing. Fetishizing death isn't a good thing. You should be celebrating life and enjoying it and all that.

I don't see [ Trainspotting ] as an albatross, I see it more as a calling card. It's got me out to Hollywood, I've got a good agent, I've got a good manager, I'm getting a lot of work out there and doing a lot of stuff - getting a lot of film projects on the go.

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.

It's hard to maintain both smack and crack habbits and remember to keep up mobile-phone payments.

In some ways, you can say that at any time in any writer's career: 'He might have run out of ideas.'

I can see why the Russians love Robert Burns, I think that Russians and Koreans have a very similar outlook to Scots.