I would never have written 'Trainspotting' if it hadn't been for this album, 'Raw Power,' and 'Metallic K.O.'

It's really odd that I've got this kind of sullen reputation - I never saw myself that way.

You know what it's like: you don't want to read your old books again. All you can see are the flaws, what you would do differently.

The cultural war of words has actually been won by the most dispossessed people in the Western world, the urban American blacks.

I grew up in a place where everybody was a storyteller, but nobody wrote. It was that kind of Celtic, storytelling tradition: everybody would have a story at the pub or at parties, even at the clubs and raves.

I make out a play list for every character and buy the records they would listen to; it helps me find their personas. What they play, where they stay, who they lay, is my matrix for character development.