Iain Banks Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

• Something in your voice tells me we approach the question of remuneration.

  Iain Banks

  Voice, Remuneration, Approach

  "Consider Phlebas (The Culture, Book 1)". Book by Iain Banks (Chapter 2 "The Hand of God 137", p. 20), 1987.

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• My greatest enemies are Women and the Sea. These things I hate. Women because they are weak and stupid and live in the shadow of men and are nothing compared to them, and the Sea because it has always frustrated me, destroying what I have built, washing away what I have left, wiping clean the marks I have made.

  Iain Banks

  Hate, Stupid, Men

  Iain Banks (2013). “The Wasp Factory: A Novel”, p.43, Simon and Schuster

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• I just took [my cancer diagnosis] as bad luck, basically. It did strike me almost immediately, my atheist sort of thing kicked in and I thought "ha, if I was a God-botherer, I'd be thinking, why me God? What have I done to deserve this?" and I thought at least I'm free of that, at least I can simply treat it as bad luck and get on with it.

  Iain Banks

  Atheist, Cancer, Thinking

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• What is all your studying worth, all your learning, all your knowledge, if it doesn't lead to wisdom? And what's wisdom but knowing what is right, and what is the right thing to do?

  Iain Banks

  Knowing, Study, Things To Do

  "Use of Weapons (The Culture, Book 3)". Book by Iain Banks (Chapter Ten, p. 316), September 13, 1990.

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• Most people are not prepared to have their minds changed, and I think they know in their hearts that other people are just the same, and one of the reasons people become angry when they argue is that they realize just that, as they trot out their excuses.

  Iain Banks

  Heart, Thinking, People

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• You have to have something worth saying and then the ability to say it- writing's a double skill, really.

  Iain Banks

  Writing, Skills, Ability

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• ...and I confess that, like a child, I cry. Ah, self-pity; I think we are at our most honest and sincere when we feel sorry for ourselves.

  Iain Banks

  Children, Sorry, Thinking

  Iain Banks (1999). “A Song of Stone: A Novel”, p.277, Simon and Schuster

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• Maybe it wasn't anything remotely to do with religion, mysticism or metaphilosophy after all; maybe it was more banal; maybe it was just...accounting.

  Iain Banks

  Accounting, Mysticism

  "Excession" by Iain Banks, Bantam Books hardcover edition, (p. 364), 1996.

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• It gripped her hand gently. 'Regret is for humans,' it said. She laughed. 'Really?' The machine shrugged and let go of her hand. 'Oh, no. It's just something we tell ourselves.

  Iain Banks

  Letting Go, Regret, Hands

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• The truth is not always useful, not always good. It’s like putting your faith in water. Yes, we need the rain, but too much can sweep you away in a flood and drown you. Like all great natural, elemental forces, the truth needs to be channeled, managed, controlled and intelligently, morally allocated.

  Iain Banks

  Rain, Water, Needs

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• It was a truism that all civilizations were basically neurotic until they made contact with everybody else and found their place within the ever-changing meta-civilisation of other beings, because, until then, during the stage when they honestly believed they might be entirely alone in existence, all solo societies were possessed of both an inflated sense of their own importance and a kind of existential terror at the sheer scale and apparent emptiness of the universe.

  Iain Banks

  Civilization, Might, Emptiness

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• Writing is like everything else: the more you do it the better you get. Don't try to perfect as you go along, just get to the end of the damn thing. Accept imperfections. Get it finished and then you can go back. If you try to polish every sentence there's a chance you'll never get past the first chapter.

  Iain Banks

  Writing, Past, Perfect

  Interview with Sarah Kinson, www.theguardian.com. February 7, 2008.

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• Well," he sighed to no one in particular, and looked up into yet another alien sky. "Here we are again.

  Iain Banks

  Sky, Aliens, Wells

  Iain M. Banks (2008). “Use Of Weapons”, p.124, Hachette UK

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• That was how divorced from the human scale modern warfare had become. You could smash and destroy from unthinkable distances, obliterate planets from beyond their own system and provoke stars into novae from light-years off... and still have no good idea why you were really fighting.

  Iain Banks

  Stars, Distance, Fighting

  "Consider Phlebas (The Culture, Book 1)". Book by Iain Banks (Chapter 2 "The Hand of God 137", p. 32), 1987.

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• Any such inklings were like a few scattered grains of truth dissolved in an ocean of nonsense, and were anyway generally inextricably bound up with patently paranoid ravings which served only to devalue the small amounts of sense and pertinence with which they were associated.

  Iain Banks

  Ocean, Nonsense, Devalue

  "Excession (The Culture, Book 5)". Book by Iain Banks (Chapter 11 "Regarding Gravious", Section VI, p. 365), 1996.

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• Perdition awaits at the end of a road constructed entirely from good intentions, the devil emerges from the details and hell abides in the small print.

  Iain Banks

  Devil, Details, Good Intentions

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• Technology determines the possibilities of society. It doesn't matter whether you start out from a fascist state or a communist state or a free-market state

  Iain Banks

  Technology, Matter, Communist

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• He knew all the answers. Everybody did. Everybody knew everything and everybody knew all the answers. It was just that the enemy seemed to know better ones.

  Iain Banks

  Enemy, Answers, Knows

  Iain M. Banks (2010). “Surface Detail”, p.80, Hachette UK

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• What is any achievement, however great it was, once time itself is dead?

  Iain Banks

  Achievement

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• Soon equates to good, later to worse, Uagen Zlepe, scholar. Therefore, immediacy.

  Iain Banks

  Immediacy, Scholar

  Iain Banks (2002). “Look to Windward”, p.213, Simon and Schuster

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• I'm too drunk to recall much of what I've said. Which, come to think of it, is probably just as well, judging by the way people who are normally quite sensible dissolve into gibbering, rude, opinionated and bombastic idiots once the alcohol molecules in their bloom-stream outnumber the neutrons, or whatever. Luckily, one only notices this if one stays sober oneself, so the solution is as pleasant (at the time, at least) as it is obvious.

  Iain Banks

  Thinking, People, Drunk

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• I still find it hard to understand that anyone could argue that you can't have machines that exhibit consciousness.

  Iain Banks

  Machines, Arguing, Consciousness

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• I am, as I have always been, of the opinion that while the niceties of normal moral constraints should be our guides, they must not be our masters.

  Iain Banks

  Normal, Morality, Opinion

  "Excession (The Culture, Book 5)". Book by Iain Banks (Chapter 8 "Killing Time", Section VII, p. 269), 1996.

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• By the usual reckoning, the worst books make the best films.

  Iain Banks

  Book, Usual, Film

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• Anyway, you can't leave her like that. You can't do that to the woman. She doesn't deserve it; nobody does. You don't belong to her and she doesn't belong to you, but you're both part of each other; if she got up and left now and walked away and you never saw each other again for the rest of your lives, and you lived an ordinary waking life for another fifty years, even so on your deathbed you would still know she was part of you.

  Iain Banks

  Years, Waking Life, Ordinary

  Iain Banks (1986). “The bridge”

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