Ecstasy

A great quote from Irvine Welsh's Marabou Stork Nightmares, especially if you're familiar with the character Roy Strang. Roy Strang is a tough guy; grew up in council estates in Scotland; violent football hooligan extraordinaire; big ears and ugly concave face.

The club was fuckin awesome. I was lost in the music and the movement. It was an incredible experience, beyond anything I'd known. I could never dance, but all self-consciousness left me as the drug and music put me in touch with an undiscovered part of myself, one that I had always somehow suppressed. The muscles in my body seemed in harmony with each other. My body's internal rhythms were pounding, I could hear them for the first time: they were singing to me. They were singing: You're alright, Roy Strang. You're alright, we're all alright. People, strangers, were coming up to me and hugging me. Birds, nice-looking lassies n that. Guys n aw; some ay them cunts that looked wide and whom I would have just panelled in the past. I just wanted to hug them all, to shake them by the hand. Something special was happening and we were all in this together. I felt closer to these strangers than I did to anyone. Dorie and Paula I loved; I just loved them. I couldn't stop hugging them, like I'd always wanted to hug pals, but it was too sappy, too poofy. I knew that after I came down I'd still love them. Something fundamental happened that night; something opened up in me.