Will Self
Will Self
William Woodard Selfis an English novelist, journalist, political commentator and television personality...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth26 September 1961
beautiful hips back-when
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.
character ideas two
My novels tend to come about from a fusion of two big ideas, creating a critical mass that then fissions, throwing off hundreds of other particles, riffs, tropes and characters.
worry essentials glue
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.
exercise thinking development
I think in retrospect that all those 'alternative'modes of living were little more than exercises in arrested development.
greatness thinking opposites
The British and American literary worlds operate in an odd kind of symbiosis: our critics think our contemporary novelists are not the stuff of greatness whereas certain contemporary Americans indubitably are. Their critics often advance the exact opposite: British fiction is cool, American naff.
race class ideas
There can be no more thrilling idea of intimacy that 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.
life book writing
Live life and write about life. Of the making of many books there is indeed no end, but there are more than enough books about books.
sports mind
It is not that sport, over-indulged in, coarsens the mind; it is that it dulls it.
art apology cake
I make no apology for preoccupying myself with architecture, television, conceptual art, restaurants and Jane Asher's cakes.
giving creative criticism
When anyone starts out to do something creative - especially if it seems a little unusual - they seek approval, often from those least inclined to give it. But a creative life cannot be sustained by approval, any more than it can be destroyed by criticism - you learn this as you go on.
good-night goodnight fall
You don't need to know this - but here goes: due to some acquired infantilism, I feel compelled to fall asleep listening to the radio. On a good night, I'll push the frail barque of my psyche off into the waters of Lethe accompanied by the midnight newsreader - on a bad one, it's the shipping forecast.
book down-and computer
I loathe computers more and more, so I have one I can shut down and shelve like a book.
writing waking firsts
I prefer to write first drafts as soon as possible after waking, so that the oneiric inscape is still present to me.
writing driven feels
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.