48 Will Self Quotes for You to Enjoy

Will Self

English Author

Born: Sep 26, 1961

Life Me People Think Work You

Related authors: A. A. Milne H. G. Wells J. K. Rowling Lewis Carroll Mary Shelley Samuel Johnson Simon Sinek Terry Pratchett

The novelist, quite rightly, fears the psychoanalyst as both an enemy and a usurper. Will Self

Enemy Fears Rightly Both Quite Novelist

In truth, even if they have an imperfect insight into their own methods, I still slightly mistrust writers of fiction who are assured literary critics; it makes me suspect that they favour the word over the world it should describe. Such scribes fall victim too easily to the solecism of equating style with morality. Will Self

Truth Me World Word Style Fall Own Victim Too Assured Slightly Easily Favour Critics Insight Morality Imperfect Writers Over Makes Mistrust Still Methods Suspect Fiction Literary Should Who Describe Even

What fiction offers us is an intimacy shorn of the messy contingencies of human existence - gender, race, class or age. Those moments of transcendence when we exclaim 'You know exactly what I mean!' depend for much of their force on the anonymous character of the intimacy between writer and reader. Will Self

Character You Class Age Gender Depend Intimacy Those Exactly Exactly What Writer Between Know Force Anonymous Reader Messy Existence Offers Human Fiction Race Human Existence Mean Us Much Moments

Some people have human muses - mine is a city. I feel a startling ambivalence towards London, but for better or worse my work has come utterly to depend upon it. Will Self

Work People Better Some People Depend Mine Worse City London Some Feel Towards Come Ambivalence Human Utterly Muses Startling

I loathe computers more and more, so I have one I can shut down and shelve like a book. Will Self

Book Down Loathe More More And More Computers Like Shut

If the government announced that it was going to allocate a vast tranche of education funding purely to the pupils at the best public schools, there would be a national outcry - and yet this is precisely what the Olympics represents in terms of sports funding. Will Self

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. Will Self

Think Worlds Our Kind Exact Exact Opposite Critics Advance Stuff Contemporary Operate Odd Opposite Greatness American Often Fiction Whereas Literary Certain Cool Novelists British

Whatever respect photography may once have deserved is now superfluous in view of its own superfluity. Will Self

Respect Photography Whatever Own Once Superfluous May View Now Deserved

I can't remember who it was who advocated that you should march with the left and dine with the right but I've often concurred, taking the view that I personify the great tolerance of Britain by consenting to being regally entertained. Besides, there is a degree of truth in the view that while the left are worthier, the right are wittier. Will Self

Not only is the statistical madness an assault on individuality, it's also one on temporality too. Statistics - even when accurate - are only an image of the past that can then be Photoshopped before being pasted on to the future. Will Self

Future Madness Past Before Too Statistical Statistics Only Individuality Also Pasted Accurate Being Then Assault Even Image

With spectacular events taking up so much of the available anxiety quotient, we need to be constantly reminded of the more workaday threats to our mortality - threats that, while they may also be functions of human error, have become so ubiquitous that we've begun to apprehend them as natural phenomena. Will Self

Natural Anxiety Events Become Apprehend Our Constantly Threats More Mortality Taking Reminded Also Error Up Begun May Human While Available Human Error Them Natural Phenomena Much Functions Spectacular Phenomena Need

Like all right-listening folk, I am an implacable enemy of all muzak. Will Self

Enemy Folk Implacable Like Am

The fictional work is a kind of actor that wears a satirical garb but can put on other costumes as well. Will Self

Work Other Kind Wears Costumes Put Well Fictional Satirical Actor

I think I now understand why it is that the young are so very nostalgic. They have so little by way of personal history that they polish it up and make it shine like a treasured heirloom. Will Self

History Shine Young Think Way Like Make Polish Understand Up Very Personal Nostalgic Little Now Why Treasured

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. Will Self

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. Will Self

Writing Beginning Differences Programs Settle Those Scene Main Between Like Contemporary American Crap Happen Literary Literature American Literature Standardization English

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. Will Self

Beautiful Me Woman Young Back Once Sign Since Hip Been Very Young Woman Breasts Then Asked Downhill Her Thing

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.' Will Self

Looking Sense Think Enormous Chunk Says Has-Been Carved More Individual Through Instead Masonry New Like Makes Buildings Metaphorical Ultimate Been Up York Move New York Which Cut Away Humans

The whole aesthetics of computers very much feeds into my OCD. They fill my head with obsessionalities and my actions become very repetitive. It seems quite inimical to the dreamy state out of which fiction comes which seems so much less causally repetitive than the way one works on computers. Will Self

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