English - Author | September 26, 1961 -
Lives don't divide up into chapters. People don't just talk, while nothing's going on in their head, and then respond. You know, none of these things actually happen.
Will Self
PeopleYouKnowNothingTalkHead
People tend to think of their lives as having a dramatic arc, because they read too much fiction.
PeopleThinkToo MuchFictionRead
Continuous present is all we have, and stream of consciousness - which in a novel is arguably just as artificial as the stilted dialogue that you get in most conventional novels. They're all stratagems to try to get closer to the texture of lived life.
LifePresentYouTryStreamLived
I'm very happy for whatever plaudits might come the way of my work, but I never ever sit down to write x with y in view - whether it's a reader, a prize or a sale.
WorkHappyViewDownWayNever
I write because I feel driven to write. I write from a sense of inner necessity. I don't write for anything other than that.
FeelWriteAnythingDrivenNecessity
I'm an anarchist. I'm implacably opposed to heirarchical systems of power and control. I also mistrust crowds, as they often operate according to their lowest common denominator. In terms of evolutionary psychology, the crowd is very close to a herd of stampeding wildebeest.
PowerControlPsychologyCrowdHerd
Once the working classes were in chains, now they're in chain restaurants.
NowChainsWorkingChainOnceWere
Of course, with well-masticated food playing the role of social glue, it's absolutely essential that everyone clear their plate. Sod the starving kiddies in Africa - it's the overfed ones here we need to worry about.
FoodWorryAfricaGlueNeedRole
The main differences between contemporary English and American literature is that the baleful pseudo-professionalism imparted by all those crap M.F.A. writing programs has yet to settle like a miasma of standardization on the English literary scene. But it's beginning to happen.
BeginningWritingAmericanLiterature
A very beautiful young woman once asked me to sign her breasts. That was back when I was a hip young thing - it's been all downhill since then.
BeautifulWomanMeBackYoungHer
There is a deep sadness to American poverty, greater than the sadness of any other kind. It's because America has such an ideology of success.
SuccessSadnessDeepAmericanKind
Instead of looking at individual buildings, it makes more metaphorical sense to think of New York as one enormous chunk of masonry that has been cut up and carved away. It says, 'This is the ultimate polis, through which humans move like nematodes.'
New YorkLookingThinkBuildingsNew
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