‘Writing can be taught. The desire and will to do it cannot.'

‘Writing can be taught. The desire and will to do it cannot.

‘Living the life of a writer means you're either starving in a garret or you're living a very leisured life. My lifestyle isn't middle class; it's upper class. I don't mean that in a smug way. I don't have the burden pf getting up and going to work. Writing is what I'd be doing anyway. That makes me feel very, very rich.'

Irvine Welsh, author of The Sex Lives of Siamese Twins, in The Times