Irvine Welsh

“Love does not exist, it's like religion, the state wants you to believe in that kind of crap so they can control you, and f**k your head up. ”

“Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suit on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brats you spawned to replace yourselves. Choose your future. Choose life… But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin’ else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you’ve got heroin?”

“Mates are a waste of fucking time. They are always ready to drag you down tae their level of social, sexual and intellectual mediocrity.”

“Some people are easier to love when you don't have to be around them.”

“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.”

“don't let jesus in. AA is just one obsession replaced with another”

“Ye see, Rab, it's due to the way we feel about our arseholes. We now believe, as a species, if our soul is located anywhere in our bodies, it's up our arses. That's where it all goes. It makes sense. That's why we're obsessed with anal jokes, anal sex, anal hobbies...the arsehole - not the brain, not space - is the last frontier. That's what makes us revolutionaries.”

“We start off with high hopes, then we bottle it. We realise that we’re all going to die, without really finding out the big answers. We develop all those long-winded ideas which just interpret the reality of our lives in different ways, without really extending our body of worthwhile knowledge, about the big things, the real things. Basically, we live a short disappointing life; and then we die. We fill up our lives with shite, things like careers and relationships to delude ourselves that it isn’t all totally pointless.”

“His eyes are wild, psychotic slits that bat-dance in your soul looking for good things to crush or bad elements to identify with.”

“I'm more of a warrior than you'll ever be. I believe in the class war. I believe in the battle of the sexes. I believe in my tribe. I believe in the righteous, intelligent clued-up section of the working classes against the brain-dead moronic masses as well as the mediocre, soulless bourgeoisie.”

“You can't lie to your soul.”

“Society invents a spurious convoluted logic tae absorb and change people whae's behaviour is outside its mainstream. Suppose that ah ken aw the pros and cons, know that ah'm gaunnae huv a short life, am ah sound mind, ectetera, ectetera, but still want tae use smack? They won't let ye dae it. They won't let ye dae it, because it's seen as a sign ay thir ain failure. The fact that ye jist simply choose tae reject whit they huv tae offer. Choose us. Choose life. Choose mortgage payments; choose washing machines; choose cars; choose sitting oan a couch watching mind-numbing and spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fuckin junk food intae yir mooth. Choose rotting away, pishing and shiteing yersel in a home, a total fuckin embarrassment tae the selfish, fucked-up brats ye've produced. Choose life.Well, ah choose no tae choose life. If the cunts cannae handle that, it's thair fuckin problem. As Harry Launder sais, ah jist intend tae keep right on to the end of the road...”

“Choose a life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television. Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers... Choose DSY and wondering who the fuck you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit crushing game shows, stucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away in the end of it all, pishing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brats you spawned to replace yourself, choose your future. Choose life... But why would I want to do a thing like that?”

“Aye Oedipus, yir a complex fucker right enough”

“This is from "Marabou Stork Nightmares".Bernard's Poem:Did you see her on the telly the other daygood family entertainment the tabloids sayBut when you're backstageat your new faeces auditionyou hear the same old shite of your own selfish volitionShe was never a singera comic or a dancerI cant say I was sadwhen I found out she had cancerGreat Britain's earthy northerncomedy queentakes the rand, understandfrom the racist Boer regimeSo now her cells are fuckedand thats just tough tittyI remember her actthat I caught back in Sun CityShe went on and on about'them from the treeswith different skull shapesfrom the likes of you and me'Her Neo-Nazi spellit left me fucking numbthe Boers lapped it up with zealso did the British ex-pat scumBut what goes roundcomes round they sayso welcome to another doseof chemotherapyAnd for my partit's time to be upfrontso fuck off and dieyou carcinogenic cunt.”