Iain M. Banks

“Look on the happy side, think of the good things. Hadn't it been clever? Yes, it had.”

— Iain M. Banks

“Some problems were generational; you just had to wait for the relevant elders to die off and be replaced with more progressive…

— Iain M. Banks

“In life you hoped to do what you could but mostly you did what you were told and that was the end…

— Iain M. Banks

“I had nightmares I thought were really horrible until I woke up and remembered what reality was at the moment.”

— Iain M. Banks

“He gazed out to sea for a moment, then added, “One should never mistake pattern … for meaning.”

— Iain M. Banks

“We are a race prone to monsters, she thought, and when we produce one we worship it.”

— Iain M. Banks

“[...] there was a relief in not being listened to, sometimes. Power meant responsibility. Advice unacted upon almost always might have been right”

— Iain M. Banks

“But just because something does not have an ending doesn't mean it doesn't have a conclusion.”

— Iain M. Banks

“It is very protective of me. But certain sorts of protection, even care, can shade into a sort of desire for ownership.…

— Iain M. Banks

“She'd asked him what it was like to be in there, doing nothing but then being woken up to speak to somebody…

— Iain M. Banks

“It could always all be unreal - how could you ever tell otherwise? You took it on trust, in part because what…

— Iain M. Banks

“It seemed perverse to some, but for all their apparent militarism the Gzilt had remained peaceful over many millenia; it was the…

— Iain M. Banks

“We always want more, he thought, we always take our past successes for granted and assume they point the way to future…

— Iain M. Banks

“It meant something to climb, to haul this sack of bones and flesh all this way, and then look, then think, then…

— Iain M. Banks

“It was the soul of the machine, the ethological epicentre, the planetary ground zero of their commercial energy. I could almost feel…

— Iain M. Banks

“There is always meaning. Or at least all things show a disturbing tendency to have meaning ascribed to them when intelligent creatures…

— Iain M. Banks

“But I don’t know what the right thing to do is; I sometimes think I know too much, I’ve studied too much,…

— Iain M. Banks

“All of it dust now, all of their precious humanoid civilization ground to junk under glaciers or weathered away by wind and…

— Iain M. Banks

“[He] just wants [...] forgiveness?" "Sma, given all the things Zakalwe’s done, just since we’ve known him, they’d have to invent a…

— Iain M. Banks

“Horza recalled that the Culture's attitude to somebody who believed in an omnipotent God was to pity them, and to take no…

— Iain M. Banks

“Empire had a clutch of missiles which were generally reckoned to be inoperable, and probably were politically unusable anyway because they were…

— Iain M. Banks

“I could try composing wonderful musical works, or day-long entertainment epics, but what would that do? Give people pleasure? My wiping this…

— Iain M. Banks

“The point is: what happens in heaven?' 'Unknowable wonderfulness?' 'Nonsense. The answer is nothing. Nothing can happen because if something happens, in…

— Iain M. Banks

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

— Iain M. Banks

“I can understand that people want to feel special and important and so on, but that self-obsession seems a bit pathetic somehow.…

— Iain M. Banks

“I sucked that smoke in and made it part of me, joined mystically with the universe right at that point, said Yes…

— Iain M. Banks

“I let myself into the cellar, locked the door behind me. The cellar was cold. I found the whisky, let myself out…

— Iain M. Banks

“Can I cuddle up with you when you sleep?” Sma stopped, detached the creature from her shoulder with one hand and stared…

— Iain M. Banks

“As you say, DeWar, our shame comes from the comparison. We know we might be generous and compassionate and good, and could…

— Iain M. Banks

“Special Circumstances had always been the Contact section’s moral espionage weapon, the very cutting edge of the Culture’s interfering diplomatic policy, the…

— Iain M. Banks

“It's luck. All is luck when skill's played out. It was luck left me with a face that didn't fit in Contact,…

— Iain M. Banks

“It is especially important to remember that the ownership of humans is possible too; not in terms of actual slavery, which they…

— Iain M. Banks

“Thing about emergencies,” he said, sounding weary. “Rarely occur when they’d be convenient.” “May”

— Iain M. Banks

“The trick, he supposed, was never to lose sight of the theoretical possibility while not for a moment taking the idea remotely…

— Iain M. Banks

“Us with our busy, busy little lives, finding no better way to pass our years than in competitive disdain.”

— Iain M. Banks

“He had to treat him as the maniac he obviously was. The fact that his insanity was dressed in religious trappings meant…

— Iain M. Banks

“I knew I might die, but I was prepared to risk that; it was almost romantic. Somehow it never occurred to me…

— Iain M. Banks

“It never ceased to amaze him how quickly a small child's face could turn from peach to beetroot.”

— Iain M. Banks

“just one more species, which would grow and expand and then, finding the plateau phase all non-suicidal species eventually arrived at, settle…

— Iain M. Banks

“He might come in useful.' 'Yeah. So's a broken leg if you want to kick yourself in the back of the head.”

— Iain M. Banks