Will Self quote: "The paradox of modernism is, writers make the decision to work with the continuous present, and to work with... stream of consciousness, as it's called, for emotional reasons, and the main emotional reason is verisimilitude. I mean, this is what surprises people: Life is not in the simple past."

I am a regular, if not exactly enthusiastic, patron of my local bookshop. I try to buy at least some...
WILL SELF

It is fair to say that insofar as sport is taken seriously by those who play it, then to that extent...
WILL SELF

One of the most heartening phenomena in today's Britain is the great diversity of the modern ner...
WILL SELF

As a bookish adolescent, I sopped up texts as if I were blotting paper and they were fluid.
WILL SELF

Regard yourself as a small corporation of one. Take yourself off on team-building exercises (long wa...
WILL SELF

If the government announced that it was going to allocate a vast tranche of education funding purely...
WILL SELF

Some people have human muses - mine is a city. I feel a startling ambivalence towards London, but fo...
WILL SELF

Sometimes, when I hear people without experience of addiction blame addicts for their behaviour, I f...
WILL SELF

Instead of looking at individual buildings, it makes more metaphorical sense to think of New York as...
WILL SELF

A creative life cannot be sustained by approval any more than it can be destroyed by criticism.
WILL SELF

You know that sickening feeling of inadequacy and over-exposure you feel when you look upon your own...
WILL SELF

When anyone starts out to do something creative - especially if it seems a little unusual - they see...
WILL SELF

In survey after survey, people report that the greatest dangers they face are, in this order: terror...
WILL SELF

With spectacular events taking up so much of the available anxiety quotient, we need to be constantl...
WILL SELF

In truth, even if they have an imperfect insight into their own methods, I still slightly mistrust w...
WILL SELF

Modernism has a reputation for being a forbidding phenomenon: its visual arts disconcertingly non-re...
WILL SELF

Continuous present is all we have, and stream of consciousness - which in a novel is arguably just a...
WILL SELF

You don't need to know this - but here goes: due to some acquired infantilism, I feel compelled ...
WILL SELF

My novels tend to come about from a fusion of two big ideas, creating a critical mass that then fiss...
WILL SELF

The main differences between contemporary English and American literature is that the baleful pseudo...
WILL SELF

I'm an anarchist. I'm implacably opposed to heirarchical systems of power and control. I als...
WILL SELF

It might be an idea for all literary critics to read the books they analyse aloud - it certainly hel...
WILL SELF

I always wanted to write fiction. Always. As far back as I can remember it's been integral to my...
WILL SELF

I prefer to write first drafts as soon as possible after waking, so that the oneiric inscape is stil...
WILL SELF

A very beautiful young woman once asked me to sign her breasts. That was back when I was a hip young...
WILL SELF

I can't remember who it was who advocated that you should march with the left and dine with the ...
WILL SELF

So heedless have we become of our own image that second-hand mobile phones now invariably come with ...
WILL SELF

Television is the same as the telephone, and the same as the World Wide Web for that matter. People ...
WILL SELF

Just as the blurring between childhood and adulthood has produced the kidult, so the stretching of m...
WILL SELF

Political activists of all stripes are usually a wacky bunch, and never more so than in a system lik...
WILL SELF

Nowadays, my mood ungoverned, I'm free to think the most outrageous things, such as: might it no...
WILL SELF

So I was smacked out on the Prime Minister's jet, big deal.
WILL SELF

As a species, we're addicted to the facile discrimination involved in saying that something or p...
WILL SELF

Who'd want to be a modernist writer in the English-speaking world?
WILL SELF

I don't think in terms of that bizarre tautology 'value for money' in my literary and jo...
WILL SELF

I'd rather fiddle with my phone for precious seconds than neglect an apostrophe; I'd rather ...
WILL SELF

For myself, I haven't been content to carry on producing books that merely strain against the co...
WILL SELF

The great liberty of the fictional writer is to let the imagination out of the traces and see it gal...
WILL SELF

Sometimes it occurs to me that the job of a serious cultural critic mostly consists in telling the g...
WILL SELF

Life, it is true, can be grasped in all its confused futility merely by opening one's eyes and s...
WILL SELF

The life of the professional writer - like that of any freelance, whether she be a plumber or a podi...
WILL SELF

The British and American literary worlds operate in an odd kind of symbiosis: our critics think our ...
WILL SELF

What the British seem to like are television historians and naturalists, not public intellectuals. Y...
WILL SELF

I've said it before - and I'll say it again: it always seems to me that we come to know our ...
WILL SELF

I like texting as much as the next kidult - and embrace it as yet more evidence, along with email, t...
WILL SELF

What more chilling indictment of the modern world is there than this: that the condition of the smar...
WILL SELF

It would seem that I, who never could make much sense of physics when I was at school, have now gain...
WILL SELF

Like all right-listening folk, I am an implacable enemy of all muzak.
WILL SELF

As for critical writing about modernism, its moments of lucidity are but fulgurations illuminating t...
WILL SELF

A party full of 'likeable' people doesn't bear contemplating.
WILL SELF

There's a flip side to having prominent public intellectuals, which is that they start meddling ...
WILL SELF

If we bought everything on the Internet, our eyes and mouths and nostrils would probably begin to fi...
WILL SELF

I'm English enough to feel something of a gut-reaction to modernism, to continental philosophisi...
WILL SELF

Vaughn's vision is older, wiser and harder than Ritchie's [on film Layer Cake]
WILL SELF

Certainly, for time out of mind, an obsessive dwelling on happier former days has been synonymous wi...
WILL SELF

The only proper suit-and-tie job I've had in my life was the two years in the late 1980s when I ...
WILL SELF

To purposely concoct older characters of a sunny disposition would be as much of a solecism as delib...
WILL SELF

Always carry a notebook. And I mean always. The short-term memory only retains information for three...
WILL SELF

Is there anything more useless than a crouton? I sometimes wake up in the small hours with a start a...
WILL SELF

Once the working classes were in chains, now they're in chain restaurants.
WILL SELF

I can't throw anything away. Anything. I'm going to end up like one of those old weirdos who...
WILL SELF

I write as someone who has no more time for repressive Islam than he does for repressive Christianit...
WILL SELF

Most of us have had that experience - at around puberty - of realising that, despite whatever effort...
WILL SELF

In our benighted age, when films about amusement park rides and electronic fidgets scoop the honours...
WILL SELF

It could be argued that every age gets the comfort savagery writer it deserves.
WILL SELF

A short story is a shard, a sliver, a vignette. It's a biopsy on the human condition but it does...
WILL SELF

Of course, with well-masticated food playing the role of social glue, it's absolutely essential ...
WILL SELF

That tertiary education is under a sustained assault by a political and - it often seems - social co...
WILL SELF

The writing life is essentially one of solitary confinement - if you can't deal with this, you n...
WILL SELF

Not only is the statistical madness an assault on individuality, it's also one on temporality to...
WILL SELF

I think I now understand why it is that the young are so very nostalgic. They have so little by way ...
WILL SELF

The fictional work is a kind of actor that wears a satirical garb but can put on other costumes as w...
WILL SELF

I explained to him - as I withdrew the cup, ripped open the sachet and dunked the tea bag - that tea...
WILL SELF

He's a ball mover. It's not that our offense has been so slow ... we ran the same stuff when he was ...
BILL SELF

The young guys ... they have been playing ample minutes in my opinion.
BILL SELF

I don't know if one player spurred it (team chemistry) on more than others, but I do think Russell R...
BILL SELF

You look at the four teams that tied with six wins, any of those teams can do some damage. Certainly...
BILL SELF

He'll wear a splint when he's not practicing. (On the court) he'll tape it up and be fine.
BILL SELF

We played great offensively. We made shots. The offense looks a lot better, and certainly we did (sh...
BILL SELF

I was very disappointed in our toughness. We were not very tough tonight.
BILL SELF

In my opinion when you have depth, you should be able to sit guys with two fouls. We subbed with nin...
BILL SELF

Teams learn how to win when they're not playing well and this team did that against Oklahoma. It's a...
BILL SELF

I think he's just scratching the surface of how good he can be.
BILL SELF

I think ASU has done everything it can. Now, it's a matter of changing Board of Regents policy and A...
CASEY SELF

What's really bothering and frustrating is that other public entities can do it, but because of pure...
CASEY SELF

My partner is 11 years older than me, and I'd like for him to be able to retire.
CASEY SELF

ASU is trying to recruit top-notch faculty, and this is what stops many of them.
CASEY SELF

You want to beat them on the court, or on the field. But after that, there is a strong fraternity of...
BILL SELF

He got a good one. If he was a boxer, they would have called the fight. I don't know how many (stitc...
BILL SELF

I felt we should have attacked the basket. It worked out perfect. We got the ball to Keith. He had p...
BILL SELF

I am most pleased with J.R. and Keith combining for 10 assists and only one turnovers. That's the ki...
BILL SELF

I didn't know that senator Dole had followed it that close. I was thrilled. He really knew quite a b...
BILL SELF

If you're not a one or two seed, the difference between the teams is minimal.
BILL SELF

Just because guys have been here before, they are not going to have the upper hand,
BILL SELF

I know it hurts. It crushed him. But if the kid isn't tough, how can a walk-on kid from Asheville, N...
BILL SELF

With the game evolving into so many ball screens and stretching defenses, you're so much harder to g...
BILL SELF

You go back to the real world, which can be a grind.
BRAD SELF

I was at the courthouse to vote this morning. I parked in the far reaches of the parking lot I notic...
KEITH SELF

Brandon's got to be a playmaker for us. When you're shooting 60 percent from three, you need to be t...
BILL SELF

Julian's going to have some turnovers because of the way he plays, and we're going to have to live w...
BILL SELF

I don't think panic's set in by any means. But in fans' minds, they're thinking it's awful early to ...
BILL SELF

I was disappointed in how we played not how we lost because Arizona's a great team. I thought we mig...
BILL SELF

I was disappointed in how we played not how we lost because Arizona's a great team, ... I thought we...
BILL SELF

We're going to be faster as a team. I think we could be a much better offensive rebounding team,
BILL SELF

What happens on the Internet is some (players) are sensitive and some guys aren't. Some guys look at...
BILL SELF

Brandon and his family rightfully have been waiting for positive feedback from the NCAA Clearinghous...
BILL SELF

All reports we have received indicate Rodrick had no involvement in the altercation other than him b...
BILL SELF

On the way down, I'm a big sleeper. I read magazines - nothing too hard.
BRAD SELF

To speak on this very issue is perilous. I want to ask one simple question. This year, the homosexua...
BILL SELF

He's hard to guard because he's unorthodox. He doesn't have a good base yet. Guys can certainly disl...
BILL SELF

She came and took away all his miseries, his sorrows !!
Then SHe
went and left him restles...
DOUGLAS SELF

From my standpoint, this was sweeter than any of the other ones that I have had, because we started ...
BILL SELF

Certainly, from my stand point, this was sweeter than any of the other (victories) that we have had ...
BILL SELF

Halfway through the second half, (the Raiders) were physically tired because we were able to throw a...
BILL SELF

That's done. We don't need to be under the radar anymore; we need to be out there. It worked out rea...
BILL SELF

I called [Pete] to say, 'What's going on? You're calling everybody but me,' ... He told me they were...
BILL SELF

Based on reports we received on campus from housing and academics, he has fulfilled requirements to ...
BILL SELF

Sleepless nights, infinite random thoughts, Remembering those moments, he had much to say, an urge t...
DOUGLAS SELF

(Dennis) hit some from Washington County. Some of them I went, 'Why did you do that; oh, good shot.'...
RODNEY SELF

abundant feeling of your presence in front of Allah is enjoy full solitude state where you are in bo...
M.I.SHAIKH MY SELF

I have only been funny about seventy four per cent of the time. Yes I think that is right. Seventy-f...
WILL FERRELL

I don't necessarily believe in organized religion.
WILL SMITH

I love being black in America, and especially being black in Hollywood.
WILL SMITH

When you create art, the world has to wait.
WILL SMITH

I have a great time with my life, and I wanna share it.
WILL SMITH

In my mind, I've always been an A-list Hollywood superstar. Y'all just didn't know yet.
WILL SMITH

You can cry, ain't no shame in it.
WILL SMITH

I've never really viewed myself as particularly talented. I've viewed myself as slightly abo...
WILL SMITH

I've trained myself to illuminate the things in my personality that are likable and to hide and ...
WILL SMITH

I don't know what my calling is, but I want to be here for a bigger reason. I strive to be like ...
WILL SMITH

We all want to be in love and find that person who is going to love us no matter how our feet smell,...
WILL SMITH

Whatever your dream is, every extra penny you have needs to be going to that.
WILL SMITH

I want the world to be better because I was here.
WILL SMITH

So if you stay ready, you ain't gotta get ready, and that is how I run my life.
WILL SMITH

Life is lived on the edge.
WILL SMITH

If you're not willing to work hard, let someone else do it. I'd rather be with someone who d...
WILL SMITH

The first step is you have to say that you can.
WILL SMITH

Everything is changing. People are taking their comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke.
WILL ROGERS

Do the best you can, and don't take life too serious.
WILL ROGERS

There's so much negative imagery of black fatherhood. I've got tons of friends that are doin...
WILL SMITH

When liberty becomes license, dictatorship is near.
WILL DURANT

Don't let yesterday use up too much of today.
WILL ROGERS

Last year we said, 'Things can't go on like this', and they didn't, they got worse.
WILL ROGERS

The farmer has to be an optimist or he wouldn't still be a farmer.
WILL ROGERS

I really feel like the sky is the limit. I'm a dreamer, and I dream in full vivid color HD.
WILL PACKER

I'm a student of patterns. At heart, I'm a physicist. I look at everything in my life as try...
WILL SMITH

Civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice.
WILL DURANT

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
WILL DURANT

And where I excel is ridiculous, sickening, work ethic. You know, while the other guy's sleeping...
WILL SMITH

Never let yesterday use up too much of today.
WILL ROGERS

I've always considered myself to be just average talent and what I have is a ridiculous insane o...
WILL SMITH

I try to speak my points of view about black America, and how I feel about black men and the role th...
WILL SMITH

It's quite highly possible that I have peaked. I mean, I just can't imagine what else I coul...
WILL SMITH

I am the black sheep of my family. They are all super talented and intelligent and got proper jobs. ...
WILL POULTER

The funny guy doesn't get the girl until later in life. High school, college, everyone still wan...
WILL FERRELL

I think the greatest all-around athlete ever was Jim Brown. He played lacrosse, basketball and ran t...
WILL MCDONOUGH

When ignorance gets started it knows no bounds.
WILL ROGERS

One of my first memories of being a kid was, 'I want to have a real job when I grow up.' And...
WILL FERRELL

I just felt that I might to go to university and get some real life. It wasn't stimulating in th...
WILL POULTER

Somehow I got a place at Bristol University. I'm still waiting for the phone call to say that th...
WILL POULTER

My youngest brother and I went on a ten-day canoe trip in Bowron Provincial Park in British Columbia...
WILL HOBBS

I have always said that a conference was held for one reason only, to give everybody a chance to get...
WILL ROGERS

I have no Politics. I am for the Party that is out of Power, no matter which one it is. But I will g...
WILL ROGERS

When I die, my epitaph or whatever you call those signs on gravestones is going to read: I joked abo...
WILL ROGERS

Here it is, a New Year. We got to make some resolutions, as well as interest and tax payments in thi...
WILL ROGERS

Everybody is ignorant only on different subjects.
WILL ROGERS

Lord, the money we do spend on Government and its not one bit better than the government we got for ...
WILL ROGERS

There is no credit to being a comedian, when you have the whole Government working for you. All you ...
WILL ROGERS

We can make this thing into a Party, instead of a Memory.
WILL ROGERS

Youve got to be an optimist to be a Democrat, and youve got to be a humorist to stay one.
WILL ROGERS

I am not a member of any organized partyI am a Democrat.
WILL ROGERS

And kid Congress and the Senate, dont scold em. They are just children thats never grown up. They do...
WILL ROGERS

I originated a remark many years ago that I think has been copied more than any little thing that Iv...
WILL ROGERS

I never met a man I didn't like.
WILL ROGERS

All politics takes place on a slippery slope. The most important four words in politics are up to a ...
GEORGE WILL

A politician's words reveal less about what he thinks about his subject than what he thinks about hi...
GEORGE WILL

Politics should share one purpose with religion: the steady emancipation of the individual through t...
GEORGE WILL

Joy comes from using your potential.
WILL SCHULTZ

Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
WILL DURANT

When ignorance gets started it knows no bounds
WILL ROGERS

To appreciate heaven well, it's good for a person to have some fifteen minutes of hell.
WILL CARLETON

But I have learned a thing or two; I know as sure as fate, When we lock up our lives for wealth, t...
WILL CARLETON

The editor sat in his sanctum, his countenance furrowed with care, His mind at the bottom of busi...
WILL CARLETON

Overall, I think Michael Jordan is the greatest athlete in any particular sport. He dominated the ga...
WILL MCDONOUGH

I think with movies I am really connecting to the Joseph Campbell idea of the collective unconscious...
WILL SMITH

Never trust a duck.
WILL HERONDALE

By the time I was ready for college, I didn't know what I wanted to do. I think I secretly wante...
WILL FERRELL

Lobbyists have more offices in Washington than the President. You see, the President only tells Cong...
WILL ROGERS

Football is a mistake. It combines the two worst elements of American life. Violence and committ...
GEORGE WILL

Saturday Night Live is such a comedy boot camp in a way, because you get to work with so many differ...
WILL FERRELL

The more you read and observe about this Politics thing, you got to admit that each party is worse ...
WILL ROGERS

Politics has become so expensive that it takes a lot of money even to be defeated.
WILL ROGERS

I've been collecting articles on extremophile bacteria for at least the last ten years. I find t...
WILL HOBBS

You can't legislate intelligence and common sense into people.
WILL ROGERS

It's great to be great, but it's greater to be human.
WILL ROGERS

I have always said that a conference was held for one reason only, to give everybody chance to get s...
WILL ROGERS

The most interesting thing in the world is another human being who wonders, suffers and raises the q...
WILL DURANT

Diplomats are just as essential in starting a war as soldiers are in finishing it.
WILL ROGERS

Do anything in this world but monkey with somebody eles's religion. What reasoning of conceit makes ...
WILL ROGERS

Fanatical religion driven to a certain point is almost as bad as none at all, but not quite.
WILL ROGERS

The paradox of modernism is, writers make the decision to work with the continuous present, and to work with... stream of consciousness, as it's called, for emotional reasons, and the main emotional reason is verisimilitude. I mean, this is what surprises people: Life is not in the simple past.

Will Self

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