Iain M. Banks Quotes
Top 84 wise famous quotes and sayings by Iain M. Banks
Iain M. Banks Famous Quotes & Sayings
Discover top inspirational quotes from Iain M. Banks on Wise Famous Quotes.
I'm saying with very few exceptions nothing lasts forever, and among those exceptions, no work or thought of man is numbered.
But such consummate skill, such ability, such adaptability, such numbing ruthlessness, such a use of weapons when anything could become weapon . . .
Mocking the wisdom that comes with age is a fit sport only for those who expect never to attain much of it themselves
Living either never has any point, or is always its own point; being a naturally cheery soul, I lean towards the latter.
I had nightmares I thought were really horrible until I woke up and remembered what reality was at the moment.
He might come in useful.'
'Yeah. So's a broken leg if you want to kick yourself in the back of the head.
'Yeah. So's a broken leg if you want to kick yourself in the back of the head.
Patience can be a means of letting matters mature to a proper state for action, not just a way of letting time slip away.
Faith is belief without reason; we operate on reason and nothing but. I have zero faith in my crew, just absolute confidence.
one may be partially owned by another or others by having to sell one's labor or talents to somebody with the means to buy them. In
There came a point when if a conspiracy was that powerful and subtle it became pointless to worry about it.
Because I do enjoy winning, because I do have something nobody can copy, something nobody else can have; I'm me; I'm one of the best.
The trick, he supposed, was never to lose sight of the theoretical possibility while not for a moment taking the idea remotely seriously.
it was the night when people got paid and didn't have to work the next day, and so by tradition went out to get drunk and into fights. Then
I had high hopes for that girl, but too much of that sort of nonsense and I think her intelligence will explosively dismantle
His jaw was slack and his mouth open, and he wondered if perhaps he would drown eventually; drowned by the falling rain.
Us with our busy, busy little lives, finding no better way to pass our years than in competitive disdain.
Strange that people are happy to adopt epithets they would fight to the death to throw off had they been imposed.
Myself," said the drone sniffily, "I have never been able to see what virtue there could be in something that was eighty percent water.
Apparently I am what is known as an Unreliable Narrator, though of course if you believe everything you're told you deserve whatever you get.
Holse wasn't about to get involved in any theological arguments. He looked serious and nodded, hoping this would do.
That's why you can destroy them, win an argument, prove the other person wrong, and still they believe what they did in the first place." He
The History Of The Universe In Three Words
CHAPTER ONE
Bang!
CHAPTER TWO
sssss
CHAPTER THREE
crunch.
THE END
CHAPTER ONE
Bang!
CHAPTER TWO
sssss
CHAPTER THREE
crunch.
THE END
In life you hoped to do what you could but mostly you did what you were told and that was the end of it.
Twice, in the depths of the sleeping ship, he almost killed somebody. One of those times, it was somebody else,
Individual is obsolete. That's why life is so comfortable for us all. We don't matter, so we're safe. No one person can have any real effect anymore.
The birds disturbed from the network of waterways beneath the barges wheeled in the sky, calling plaintively.
I knew I might die, but I was prepared to risk that; it was almost romantic. Somehow it never occurred to me it might entail privation and suffering.
had nightmares I thought were really horrible until I woke up and remembered what reality was like at the moment,
But then, as she knew too well, the more fondly we imagine something will last forever, the more ephemeral it often proves to be.
The good soldier did as he was told, and if he had any sense at all volunteered for nothing, especially promotion.
Theirs is a civilization of deprivation; ours of finely balanced satisfaction ever teetering on the brink of excess.
just one more species, which would grow and expand and then, finding the plateau phase all non-suicidal species eventually arrived at, settle down.
Some problems were generational; you just had to wait for the relevant elders to die off and be replaced with more progressive types.
Obsession is just what those too timorous to follow an idea through to its logical conclusion call determination.
So basically you're sticking around to watch us all fuck up ?"
"Yes. It's one of life's few guaranteed constants.
"Yes. It's one of life's few guaranteed constants.
The Idirans themselves had evolved on their planet Idir as the top monster from a whole planetful of monsters.
Well, in the end, there was no helping this. Sometimes you just had to adopt the attitude summed up by, Too bad.
A Mind could hold any set of facts and opinions it wanted without having to tell anybody what it knew or thought, or why.
What's one more meaningless act of violence on that zoo of a planet?
It would be appropriate.
When in Rome; burn it.
It would be appropriate.
When in Rome; burn it.
One believed what one was told to believe, what it made sense to believe. Unless one was a foreigner, of course, or a philosopher.
It was rude, insulting and frequently infuriating, but it made such a refreshing change from the awful politeness of most people.
You could find out most things, if you knew the right questions to ask. Even if you didn't, you could still find out a lot.