Irvine Welsh Quotes

Everyone's supposed to stay in their lines and be neat. 'You're a rapper. You're supposed to rap, carry a boom box, wear chains, and go to the club - that's all you do. What are you doing collecting art? What are you talking about? Wait a minute, you're getting out of the zone.' People hate when people cross lines.

I'm glad I've established this as my zone: 'the taboo breaker.'

I love the fact we do break taboos.

Transgressive to me means breaking the rules and sinning. I don't see myself as breaking the rules and sinning. I'm really interested in what it means to be female.

I didn't want to feel constrained, so I took on the Mutants.

Bandwagons roll through our lives. It's up to you whether you jump on them unquestioningly or jump on them to overturn them and subvert them.

I just try to get away with as much as I can. I don't think that's very radical in the art world.

In the U.S., you have to be a deviant or die of boredom.

I like to step outside of what people's idea of me might be. I suppose that makes me a bit of a rule-breaker. I like to take chances.

Sometimes the most positive thing you can be in a boring society is absolutely negative.

I always wanted to go against hat grain because it was too restricting.

I don't say we all ought to misbehave, but we ought to look as if we could.

Conservatism and respectability have their values, certainly; but has not the unconventional its values also?

There are always people who are doing things that don't fit the official accounts.

And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.

Fashion is an imposition, a reign on freedom.

Any pigeonhole is something to be rebelled against.

Do what you are not supposed to do, like wear white shoes all year round.

You know, how much order is good? And when does order become too restrictive? Is a little bit of chaos okay, or is chaos always an evil force? I mean, these are questions that any kid who's ever been in a school cafeteria can relate to.

Everyone's got skeletons in their closet, and I've got a million in mine, believe me. I tested the envelope; I pushed it. Whenever somebody in authority told me not to do something, I did it just to find out why they said not to do it.

There are two rules I've always tried to live by: turn left, if you're supposed to turn right; go through any door that you're not supposed to enter. It's the only way to fight your way through to any kind of authentic feeling in a world beset by fakery.

How I hate those who are dedicated to producing conformity.

I do like things that are not necessarily a reflection of what is considered the right thing by this culture. Somehow, promoting that status quo I find uninteresting.

You're made aware of what the industry is and what you need to conform to; I don't fit that, and I'm never going to.

I like breaking the rules.