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Will Self Quotes

William Woodard Self is an English novelist, journalist, political commentator and television personality.

Self is the author of ten novels, five collections of shorter fiction, three novellas, and five collections of non-fiction writing. His work has been translated into 22 languages; his 2002 novel Dorian, an Imitation was longlisted for the Booker Prize, and his novel Umbrella was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. His fiction is known for being satirical, grotesque, and fantastical, and is predominantly set within his home city of London. His subject matter often includes mental illness, illegal drugs and psychiatry.

Self is a regular contributor to publications including Playboy, The Guardian, Harper's, The New York Times and the London Review of Books. He currently writes a column for the New Statesman, and over the years he has been a columnist for the Observer, The Times, and the Evening Standard. His columns for Building Design on the built environment, and for the Independent Magazine on the psychology of place brought him to prominence as a thinker concerned with the politics of urbanism.

Self is a regular contributor on British television, initially as a guest on comic panel shows such as Have I Got News for You and Shooting Stars, but latterly appearing on current affairs programmes such as Newsnight and Question Time. He is also a frequent contributor to BBC Radio 4.

✵ 26. September 1961
Will Self photo
Will Self: 11 quotes0 likes

Famous Will Self Quotes

“Always carry a notebook. And I mean always. The short-term memory only retains information for three minutes; unless it is committed to paper you can lose an idea for ever.”

Will Self

“I'm going to end up like one of those old weirdos who lives in a network of tunnels burrowed through trash - yet I do not fear this.”

Will Self

“An English gentleman never shines his shoes, but then nor does a lazy bastard.”

Will Self

Source: Dorian

“I think of writing as a sculptural medium. You are not building things. You are removing things, chipping away at language to reveal a living form.”

Will Self

Quoted by The Guardian http://books.guardian.co.uk/authors/author/0,5917,-164,00.html

“Wealth is a form of power in our society. With great power comes great responsibility. If you have too much wealth, ipso facto, you have too much power - therefore you have too much responsibility - and you're a kind of dictator.”

Will Self

The Moral Maze, BBC Radio 4, October 1st, 2008.

Will Self Quotes

“So I was smacked up on the Prime Minister's jet – big deal.”

Will Self

Interviewed by The Independent on Sunday, April 1997. http://web.archive.org/web/19970429201840/http://www.bbc.co.uk/election97/news/0419/brief.htm

“There can be no more thrilling idea of intimacy than connecting with someone through the agency of the written word. Here we meet, on the page, naked and unadorned: shorn of class, race, gender, sexual identity, age and nationality. The reader I seek is a tautology, for he/she is simply…the person who wants to read what I have written.”

Will Self

The Guardian, May 9, 2007. http://books.guardian.co.uk/whyiwrite/story/0,,2075745,00.html#article_continue

“I have a healthy appetite for solitude. If you don't, you have no business being a writer.”

Will Self

The Guardian, May 9, 2007. http://books.guardian.co.uk/whyiwrite/story/0,,2075745,00.html#article_continue

“The éminence cerise, the bolster behind the throne.”

Will Self

The Independent on Sunday, August 8, 1999
Of the Queen Mother.

“Things are only boring if you are boring.”

Will Self

'Room 101', BBC2, March 19th, 2001.

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