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I tried to write 'Trainspotting' in standard English, but people weren't talking like that.

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.

In the 1990s, from the estates of Scotland came the phenomenon of Irvine Welsh. 'Trainspotting' demanded its place not only in the high ranks of contemporary fiction but as a describer of a Britain that literally and metaphorically was in a deep mess.

I didn't have any concept of Trainspotting being published. It was a selfish act. I did it for myself.

I love trains. I don't even mind First Great Western, which is a stupid name because it implies every carriage is first class, but they're not.

Many Americans have a romanticized view of trains, rooted in a bygone era of elaborately adorned rail cars lit by flickering gas lamps and pulled by smoke-belching steam locomotives.

Ever since childhood, when I lived within earshot of the Boston and Maine, I have seldom heard a train go by and not wished I was on it.

I'm rather proud of having been a trainspotter.

I never want to be pretentious.

There's something about the sound of a train that's very romantic and nostalgic and hopeful.