On His Writing Quotes

“Obviously as a writer you have to reflect on why your work is provoking such hostility, because all you want to do is write your stories as best you can. You're forced to reflect on, why is my work so upsetting for people? The agenda behind it is clear. They don't want to see these people in literature. These areas of human experience [I write about] should not appear in public; we don't want to know. We know that people are in the street, that they have no money and are maybe begging, but we don't want to see them in literature. They should be swept under the carpet.”
― James Kelman