Iain Banks

I'm not a great believer in awards-of course the fact that I've never won one has nothing to do with it at…

— Iain Banks

“Looking at me, you'd never guess I'd killed three people. It isn't fair.”

— Iain Banks

One should never mistake pattern for meaning.

— Iain Banks

I'm a devoted husband. That must strike you as totally deviant.

— Iain Banks

“The flames had passed over those flattened blades and consumed their heather neighbours on either side while they themselves had remained, made…

— Iain Banks

All you ever were was a little bit of the universe, thinking to itself. Very specific; this bit, here, right now. All…

— Iain Banks

“We're not in prison, we're not junkies and we're not Young Tories...it's no small achievement.”

— Iain Banks

Torture is such a slippery slope; as soon as you allow a society or any legal system to do that, almost instantly…

— Iain Banks

“Two years after I killed Blyth I murdered my young brother Paul, for quite different reasons than I'd disposed of Blyth, and…

— Iain Banks

If you have any helpful suggestions I'd be pleased to hear them. If all you can do is make snide insinuations then…

— Iain Banks

“He hit and fatally injured my innocent and unfortunate uncle whose muttered last words in hospital, before his coma became a full…

— Iain Banks

A guilty system recognizes no innocents.

— Iain Banks

“All reality is a game.”

— Iain Banks

There has seldom if ever a shortage of eager young males prepared to kill and die to preserve the security, comfort and…

— Iain Banks

Escape is a consumer goods like another

— Iain Banks

Mr Blawke always reminded me of a heron; I'm not sure why. Something to do with a sense of rapacious stillness, perhaps,…

— Iain Banks

I think the easiest people to fool are ourselves. Fooling ourselves may even be a necessary precondition for fooling others.

— Iain Banks

You need to read more science fiction. Nobody who reads science fiction comes out with this crap about the end of history

— Iain Banks

Any such inklings were like a few scattered grains of truth dissolved in an ocean of nonsense, and were anyway generally inextricably…

— Iain Banks

“The point is, there is no feasible excuse for what we are, for what we have made of ourselves. We have chosen…

— Iain Banks

You get so caught up in what you're writing - action sequences tend to do that more than anything else because you're…

— Iain Banks

I enjoy it too much - even if I knew I'd never get a book published, I would still write. I enjoy…

— Iain Banks

“The usual example given to illustrate an Outside Context Problem was imagining you were a tribe on a largish, fertile island; you'd…

— Iain Banks

“These were the days of fond promise, when the world was very small and there wasstill magic in it. He told them…

— Iain Banks

“There is only darkness, starless and complete. The waves glitter like a million dull knives.”

— Iain Banks