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.

Ah walk doon Hammersmith Broadway, London seeming strange and alien, after only a three-month absence, as familiar places do when you’ve been away. It’s as if everything is a copy of what you knew before, similar, yet somehow lacking in its usual qualities, a bit like the wey things are in a dream. They say you have to live in a place to know it, but you have to come fresh tae really see it.

I'd always done a lot of sniffing glue as a kid. I was very interested in glue, and then I went to lager and speed, and I drifted into heroin because as a kid growing up everybody told me, 'don't smoke marijuana, it will kill you'.

I'm quite comfortable now with being misunderstood. I don't really feel the need either to pander to it or to refute it. Just go on, and do what I've got to do.

I think young writers should get other degrees first, social sciences, arts degrees or even business degrees. What you learn is research skills, a necessity because a lot of writing is about trying to find information.

You've got first-generation Americans here who are going to be poorer than their parents. That's never happened in the States before, and it's going to have massive social repercussions here.

When I go to places and do book tours, I don't really like doing traditional bookshops. It's nice to walk people through something instead of just standing up in a bookstore.