You're never going to get beyond other people's preconceptions of what you are and what you're about.

Chicago is seen as everything that Trump detests, which I think kind of reflects really well on the city I think, because it's a mark of what a classy, cool, sort of place it is. You can't tame everyone in America, as much as these people would like to, into some kind of small-town, Southern community.

If the media is just a cheerleader for an authoritarian populist, who isn't that popular, then we're in a sorry state. The media has to be critical - it has to scrutinize it, it has to call out things.

Most people with good jobs, middle-class occupations, what have you, are only one pitfall away from social embarrassment and destitution. It's so precarious. Even salaried people in the West now feel this sense of being trapped, not having the freedom to strike out.

He emphasised basic truths: you are not dying yet, you have to live your life until you are. Underpinning them was the belief that the grim reality of impending death can be talked away by trying to invest in the present reality of life. I didn’t believe that at the time, but now I do. By definition, you have to live until you die. Better to make that life as complete and enjoyable an experience as possible, in case death is shite, which I suspect it will be.

I didn't have any concept of Trainspotting being published. It was a selfish act. I did it for myself.

I spend so much time on the screen when I am writing, the last thing you want to do is spend more time on the Internet looking at a screen. That's what I hate about all this technology.