Renton quotes

View Quote Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a ****ing big television, Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players, and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance. Choose fixed-interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisure wear and matching luggage. Choose a three piece suite on hire purchase in a range of ****ing fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the **** you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing ****ing junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, ****ed-up brats you have spawned to replace yourself. Choose your future. Choose life . . . But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life: I chose something else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you've got heroin?

View Quote People think it's all about misery and desperation and death and all that shite, which is not to be ignored. But what they forget is the pleasure of it. Otherwise we wouldn't do it. After all, we're not ****ing stupid. At least, we're not that ****ing stupid. Take the best orgasm you ever had, multiply it by a thousand and you're still nowhere near it. When you're on junk you have only one worry: scoring. When you're off it you are suddenly obliged to worry about all sorts of other shite. Got no money: can't get pished. Got money: drinking too much. Can't get a bird: no chance of a ride. Got a bird: too much hassle. You have to worry about bills, about food, about some football team that never ****ing wins, about human relationships and all the things that really don't matter when you've got a sincere and truthful junk habit.

View Quote [explaining the gaps in his employment history] Yes, I can. The truth -- well, the truth is that I've had a long-standing problem with heroin addiction. I've been known to sniff it, smoke it, swallow it, stick it up my arse and inject it into my veins. I've been trying to combat this addiction, but unless you count social security scams and shoplifting, I haven't had a regular job in years. I feel it's important to mention this.

View Quote Young Renton noticed the haste with which the successful in the sexual sphere, as in all others, segregated themselves from the failures.

View Quote It's SHITE being Scottish! We're the lowest of the low, the s**** of the ****ing earth, the most wretched, miserable, servile, pathetic trash that was ever shat into civilization. Some people hate the English, I don't. They're just wankers. We, on the other hand, are colonized by wankers. We can't even find a decent culture to be colonized by. We are ruled by effete arseholes. It's a shite state of affairs to be in, Tommy! And all the fresh air in the world won't make any ****ing difference!

View Quote At, or around this time, Spud, Sick Boy and I made a healthy, informed, democratic decision to get back on heroin as soon as possible.

View Quote No thank you. I'll proceed directly to the intravenous injection of hard drugs please.

View Quote There was no such thing as society and even if there was, I most certainly had nothing to do with it. (Himself quoting Margaret Thatcher, from Women's Own magazine, October 31 1987.)

View Quote We called him Mother Superior on account of the length of his habit.

View Quote Begbie didn't do drugs either. He just did people. That's what he got off on; his own sensory addiction.

View Quote Swanney taught us to adore and respect the National Health Service, for it was the source of much of our gear. We stole drugs. We stole prescriptions or bought them, sold them, swapped them, forged them, photocopied them. Or traded drugs with cancer victims, alcoholics, old-age pensioners, AIDS patients, epileptics, and bored housewives.

View Quote Thank you, your honor. With God's help I'll conquer this terrible affliction.

View Quote I fantasize about a massive, pristine convenience. Brilliant gold taps, virginal white marble, a seat carved from ebony, a cistern full of Chanel Number 5, and a flunky handing me pieces of raw silk toilet roll. But under the cir****stances I'll settle for anywhere.

View Quote One thousand years from now there'll be no guys and no girls, just wankers. Sounds great to me.

View Quote The downside of coming off junk was I knew I would need to mix with my friends again in a state of full consciousness. It was awful. They reminded me so much of myself, I could hardly bear to look at them.

View Quote Living like this, is a full-time business.

View Quote It seems, however, I really am the luckiest guy in the world. Several years of addiction right in the middle of an epidemic, surrounded by the living dead. But not me. I'm negative. It's official. And once the pain goes away, that's when the real battle starts. Depression, boredom . . . You feel so ****ing low, you want to ****ing top yourself.

View Quote [narrating] Heroin makes you constipated. The heroin from my last hit was fading, and the suppositories had yet to melt. [moans loudly, doubles over] I'm no longer constipated.

View Quote Now I've justified this to myself in all sorts of ways. It wasn't a big deal, just a minor betrayal. Or we'd outgrown each other, you know, that sort of thing. But let's face it, I ripped them off - my so called mates. But Begbie, I couldn't give a shit about him. And Sick Boy, well he'd done the same to me, if he'd only thought of it first. And Spud, well okay, I felt sorry for Spud - he never hurt anybody. So why did I do it? I could offer a million answers - all false. The truth is that I'm a bad person. But, that's gonna change - I'm going to change. This is the last of that sort of thing. Now I'm cleaning up and I'm moving on, going straight and choosing life. I'm looking forward to it already. I'm gonna be just like you. The job, the family, the ****ing big television. The washing machine, the car, the compact disc and electric tin opener, good health, low cholesterol, dental insurance, mortgage, starter home, leisure wear, luggage, three piece suite, DIY, game shows, junk food, children, walks in the park, nine to five, good at golf, washing the car, choice of sweaters, family Christmas, indexed pension, tax exemption, clearing gutters, getting by, looking ahead to the day you die.