I grew up in what was not so much a familyas a genetic disaster.

It's all been quite a revitalizing process for me, being out there in the States. It wouldn't have happened without Trainspotting.

When I first started to get into writing, it was via music. I'd generate ideas for songs that would turn into stories, then they'd turn into novels. I was biased toward music.

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

Most people in the West are not politicized. They're the most simplistic consumers - they're animals, basically.

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.

I'd always liked to read, but when I picked up books I wasn't getting the same kind of excitement from them that I was from going out clubbing. I wanted to get the same kind of feel.