The books that are really valuable are the books that evoke a sense of place.
It was the books I started reading. It was the music I started listening to. It was the television I started watching. I found myself thinking again. I tried to stop because it was only causing pain. I couldn't. Wen all this is in your head it has to come out into your life. If it doesn't, you get crushed. I'm not going to get crushed.
Basically, particularly in Britain, it's a hegemonic thing that people who write tend to come from the leisure classes. They can afford the time and the books.
The first of the Trainspotting crew to die. Out of the five of them like, Begbie, Renton, Spud, Sick Boy and [Margaret] Thatcher. Who'd have thunk she'd have been the first to go? She was the invisible author of the book, really. She created the conditions and the hubris whereby that whole culture flourished.
When I go to places and do book tours, I don't really like doing traditional bookshops. It's nice to walk people through something instead of just standing up in a bookstore.
When you look at the whole explosion of the Internet, the decline of print journalism, there are all of these plus-or-minus ramifications, and you have to work it out. The great thing about books is that you have a tactile thing that's there. You can download this or download that, but how long do you want to be staring at a screen for the rest of your life? You've got to have some kind of proper interface for people that's not about the screen.
I've always got a book in my hands, a novel in my hands. The more I get into film, the more paranoid I get that I'm going to stop seeing things.
Every kind of book I've written has been written in a different way. There has not been any set time for writing, any set way, I haven't re-invented the process every time but I almost have.
When you start off with your first book, people assume that you're like all the characters in the book - and it does complicate things, when you're being constantly bombarded with it, but you have to embrace it.
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.
It's different in Scotland. People who come to readings are more interested in literature as such, but the readership in general is really quite diverse. It's a cliche, but it's said that people who read my books don't read any other books, and you do get that element.
I think [Ecstasy] was a really good stab. It wasn't my strongest book or my strongest material, but they wanted to make a kinda "rave culture" movie.
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