Sometimes a book influences me because it winds me up. There'll be something that gets under my skin and makes me think that I can do better.

Irvine Welsh

Because Better Book Gets

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Standard English is very imperialistic, controlled, and precise; it's not got a lot of funk or soul to it.

Irvine Welsh

Controlled English Funk Got

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I'm the worst employee in the world. I'll cheat and steal time and resources from my employer, although I'll con everybody into believing I'm essential to the operation.

Irvine Welsh

Although Believing Cheat Con

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When I left school at 16, I became an apprentice television and radio technician, and was paid Â£17 a week, which was decent money in 1976. But the job turned sour when I gave myself an electric shock while repairing a television set.

Irvine Welsh

Apprentice Became Decent Electric

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It's very difficult to be objective about yourself and your own circumstances, but one thing I do know about is that I grew up surrounded by storytellers.

Irvine Welsh

About Circumstances Difficult Grew

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Technology is changing the way we interact as humans.

Dan Brown

Changing Humans Interact Technology

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Everybody in my family were great storytellers. My dad and his brothers would just go on and on; they could tell amazing stories. I think it was something to do with the Celtic, oral storytelling tradition. People very much had that propensity towards telling tales.

Irvine Welsh

Amazing Brothers Celtic Could

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I feel like if I'm going to take time reading, I better be learning.

Dan Brown

Better Feel Going Learning

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The idea is not enough. And the most annoying thing for me as a writer is that people will come up to me and say, 'Hey, I've got a great idea for a book. I'm not a writer, but I've got a great story.'

Irvine Welsh

Annoying Book Come Enough

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It's probably an intellectual weakness, but I look at the stars, and I say, 'There's something bigger than us out there.'

Dan Brown

Bigger Intellectual Look Something

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That's the kind of consumer society we live in. We're always looking for the next product that's going to change your life instead of just going out and changing your life.

Irvine Welsh

Always Change Changing Consumer

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I don't really think about genre. I like to write books that I'd love to read myself.

Dan Brown

Books Genre Like Love

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I love to learn, and at some level, there's something to learn from my books. And I love art and philosophy, so there's something philosophical about my fiction.

Dan Brown

Art Books Fiction Learn

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A lot of people pulled me up after 'Trainspotting' for its absence of politics, but the argument I make is that the absence of politics is political as well.

Irvine Welsh

Absence After Argument Lot

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So many people have become divorced from the system, criminalised by their lifestyle.

Irvine Welsh

Become Divorced Lifestyle Many

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I personally believe that our planet would be absolutely fine without religion, and I also feel we are evolving in that direction.

Dan Brown

Believe Fine Direction Feel

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The idea of just sitting at home on Facebook worries me. I think we should all get out more.

Irvine Welsh

Facebook Get Home I Think

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I'm trying to write books that taste like ice cream but have the nutrition of vegetables.

Dan Brown

Nutrition Cream Books Taste

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It's part of me, Scotland. I'm still immersed in it even though I am not there.

Irvine Welsh

Am Even I Am Immersed

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We have plenty of technologies we could use to destroy the planet, and we don't. There's more love on this planet than hate; there's more creativity than destructive power.

Dan Brown

Love More Power Hate

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I think that every project offers an opportunity to reinvent process as well as content.

Irvine Welsh

Content Every I Think Offers

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Sometimes I work purely 8-12 shifts, banging stuff into the computer. Other times, my office is like a scene from a detective movie, with Post-it Notes, plans, photographs all stuck on the walls and arrows going everywhere, and it's 4 A.M.

Irvine Welsh

Arrows Banging Computer Detective

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Writing is a solitary journey, so I am always excited to go out on book tour and meet readers one-on-one.

Dan Brown

Always Book Tour Meet

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I don't perceive an audience at all when I write a book. It's pure self-indulgence.

Irvine Welsh

Audience Book I Write Perceive

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I think the novel is at one end of the art-entertainment continuum - the play in the middle - while TV and cinema veer a bit more towards entertainment.

Irvine Welsh

Bit Cinema Continuum End

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Our religions are much more similar than they are different.

Dan Brown

Different More Similar Much

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It's been a good thing for me to try and understand America.

Irvine Welsh

A Good Thing America Been Good

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I'm not interested in cutting the feet off my characters or stretching them to make them fit my certain political view.

Margaret Atwood

Certain Characters Cutting Feet

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There ain't nothing from the outside that can lick any of us.

Margaret Mitchell

Any Lick Nothing Outside

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Life's under no obligation to give us what we expect.

Margaret Mitchell

Expect Give Life Obligation

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Fighting is like champagne. It goes to the heads of cowards as quickly as of heroes. Any fool can be brave on a battlefield when it's be brave or else be killed.

Margaret Mitchell

Brave Champagne Cowards Else

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The world can forgive practically anything except people who mind their own business.

Margaret Mitchell

Anything Business Except Forgive

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Land is the only thing in the world that amounts to anything, for 'Tis the only thing in this world that lasts, 'Tis the only thing worth working for, worth fighting for - worth dying for.

Margaret Mitchell

Amount Anything Dying Fighting

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Until you have lost your reputation, you never realize what a burden it was or what freedom really is.

Margaret Mitchell

Burden Freedom Lost Never

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What most people don't seem to realize is that there is just as much money to be made out of the wreckage of a civilization as from the upbuilding of one.

Margaret Mitchell

Just Just As Much Made Money

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Margaret Mitchell

After Another Another Day Day

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With enough courage, you can do without a reputation.

Margaret Mitchell

Courage Enough Reputation Without

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Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Become Combine Dictionary Evil

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My dear, I don't give a damn.

Margaret Mitchell

Damn Dear Give

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I want peace. I want to see if somewhere there isn't something left in life of charm and grace.

Margaret Mitchell

Charm Grace Left Life

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In our nature, however, there is a provision, alike marvelous and merciful, that the sufferer should never know the intensity of what he endures by its present torture, but chiefly by the pang that rankles after it.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

After Alike Chiefly Endures

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No man for any considerable period can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Another Any Bewildered Considerable

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Every individual has a place to fill in the world and is important in some respect whether he chooses to be so or not.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Chooses Every Fill He

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The world owes all its onward impulses to men ill at ease. The happy man inevitably confines himself within ancient limits.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Ancient Confines Ease Happy

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Nathaniel Hawthorne

Damn Easy Easy Reading Hard

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Accuracy is the twin brother of honesty; inaccuracy, of dishonesty.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Accuracy Brother Dishonesty Honesty

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Religion and art spring from the same root and are close kin. Economics and art are strangers.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Art Close Economics Kin

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You can get assent to almost any proposition so long as you are not going to do anything about it.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

About Almost Any Anything

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Love, whether newly born, or aroused from a deathlike slumber, must always create sunshine, filling the heart so full of radiance, this it overflows upon the outward world.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Always Aroused Born Create

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Our Creator would never have made such lovely days, and have given us the deep hearts to enjoy them, above and beyond all thought, unless we were meant to be immortal.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Above Beyond Creator Days

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4391 Novelist Quotes

Sometimes a book influences me because it winds me up. There'll be something that gets under my skin and makes me think that I can do better.

Irvine Welsh

Standard English is very imperialistic, controlled, and precise; it's not got a lot of funk or soul to it.

Irvine Welsh

I'm the worst employee in the world. I'll cheat and steal time and resources from my employer, although I'll con everybody into believing I'm essential to the operation.

Irvine Welsh

When I left school at 16, I became an apprentice television and radio technician, and was paid Â£17 a week, which was decent money in 1976. But the job turned sour when I gave myself an electric shock while repairing a television set.

Irvine Welsh

It's very difficult to be objective about yourself and your own circumstances, but one thing I do know about is that I grew up surrounded by storytellers.

Irvine Welsh

Dan Brown

Everybody in my family were great storytellers. My dad and his brothers would just go on and on; they could tell amazing stories. I think it was something to do with the Celtic, oral storytelling tradition. People very much had that propensity towards telling tales.

Irvine Welsh

I feel like if I'm going to take time reading, I better be learning.

Dan Brown

The idea is not enough. And the most annoying thing for me as a writer is that people will come up to me and say, 'Hey, I've got a great idea for a book. I'm not a writer, but I've got a great story.'

Irvine Welsh

It's probably an intellectual weakness, but I look at the stars, and I say, 'There's something bigger than us out there.'

Dan Brown

That's the kind of consumer society we live in. We're always looking for the next product that's going to change your life instead of just going out and changing your life.

Irvine Welsh

I don't really think about genre. I like to write books that I'd love to read myself.

Dan Brown

I love to learn, and at some level, there's something to learn from my books. And I love art and philosophy, so there's something philosophical about my fiction.

Dan Brown

A lot of people pulled me up after 'Trainspotting' for its absence of politics, but the argument I make is that the absence of politics is political as well.

Irvine Welsh

So many people have become divorced from the system, criminalised by their lifestyle.

Irvine Welsh

I personally believe that our planet would be absolutely fine without religion, and I also feel we are evolving in that direction.

Dan Brown

The idea of just sitting at home on Facebook worries me. I think we should all get out more.

Irvine Welsh

I'm trying to write books that taste like ice cream but have the nutrition of vegetables.

Dan Brown

It's part of me, Scotland. I'm still immersed in it even though I am not there.

Irvine Welsh

We have plenty of technologies we could use to destroy the planet, and we don't. There's more love on this planet than hate; there's more creativity than destructive power.

Dan Brown

I think that every project offers an opportunity to reinvent process as well as content.

Irvine Welsh

Sometimes I work purely 8-12 shifts, banging stuff into the computer. Other times, my office is like a scene from a detective movie, with Post-it Notes, plans, photographs all stuck on the walls and arrows going everywhere, and it's 4 A.M.

Irvine Welsh

Writing is a solitary journey, so I am always excited to go out on book tour and meet readers one-on-one.

Dan Brown

I don't perceive an audience at all when I write a book. It's pure self-indulgence.

Irvine Welsh

I think the novel is at one end of the art-entertainment continuum - the play in the middle - while TV and cinema veer a bit more towards entertainment.

Irvine Welsh

Our religions are much more similar than they are different.

Dan Brown

Irvine Welsh

I'm not interested in cutting the feet off my characters or stretching them to make them fit my certain political view.

Margaret Atwood

There ain't nothing from the outside that can lick any of us.

Margaret Mitchell

Margaret Mitchell

Fighting is like champagne. It goes to the heads of cowards as quickly as of heroes. Any fool can be brave on a battlefield when it's be brave or else be killed.

Margaret Mitchell

The world can forgive practically anything except people who mind their own business.

Margaret Mitchell

Land is the only thing in the world that amounts to anything, for 'Tis the only thing in this world that lasts, 'Tis the only thing worth working for, worth fighting for - worth dying for.

Margaret Mitchell

Until you have lost your reputation, you never realize what a burden it was or what freedom really is.

Margaret Mitchell

What most people don't seem to realize is that there is just as much money to be made out of the wreckage of a civilization as from the upbuilding of one.

Margaret Mitchell

Margaret Mitchell

With enough courage, you can do without a reputation.

Margaret Mitchell

Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

My dear, I don't give a damn.

Margaret Mitchell

I want peace. I want to see if somewhere there isn't something left in life of charm and grace.