“There are times when you can't do the sensible thing, when you can't act like a responsible adult at all; you just have to do whatever insane thing comes into your head. When bad people do it they end up murderers, when good people do it they end up heroes, and when the rest of do it we end up looking like total idiots. But when's that ever stopped us?”
― Iain Banks, quote from Espedair Street
“The sunset was really over, but a thunderously deep stain of red still lay across the furthest limit of the western sky. I looked out to it for a moment. Skye was somewhere out there, more felt than seen.”
― Iain Banks, quote from Espedair Street
“... as fur sneak nuclear attacks on anithir country, there was only wan state in history had ever done that, an it wiznae the fuckin Soviet Union.' - McCann”
― Iain Banks, quote from Espedair Street
“He was one of those men ... who know in their hearts that for all their edgy, belligerent hardness they are just unhappy kids, emotional retards.”
― Iain Banks, quote from Espedair Street
“There's this sloth in the jungle walking from one tree to another, and it's mugged by a gang of snails, and when the police ask the sloth if it could identify any of its attackers, it says, 'I don't know; it all happened so quickly...”
― Iain Banks, quote from Espedair Street
“And even a small amount of talent can go an appallingly long way, these days.”
― Iain Banks, quote from Espedair Street
“Aye,’ McCann said ruefully, ‘if yer rich yer just eccentric; if yer poor yer a nutcase an they stick ye in the bin.”
― Iain Banks, quote from Espedair Street
“Peddle one of the least harmful drugs humanity's ever discovered, and you get twenty years. Peddle something that kills a hundred thousand a year... and you get a knighthood.”
― Iain Banks, quote from Espedair Street
“I still don't understand fashion. Why do people dress up in new styles in the first place if they're only going to act all embarrassed and ashamed about them later?”
― Iain Banks, quote from Espedair Street
Iain Banks
Born place: in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland
Born date February 16, 1954
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“HE WAS SITTING ON THE FLAT STONE THAT SERVED as a doorstep, waiting for his supper to cook. The late sun slanted in long yellow bars across the clearing. The forest beyond was already in shadow. Matt was feeling well pleased with his day. That morning he had shot a rabbit. He had skinned it carefully, stretching the fur against the cabin wall to dry.”
― Elizabeth George Speare, quote from The Sign of the Beaver
“Make sure you're not expecting cute. This isn't Looking For Alaska.”
― Hannah Moskowitz, quote from Teeth
“Sometimes you are stuck being the person you are and not the person you were. Or could be.”
― Karina Halle, quote from Love, in English
“Perhaps they had decided they did not have it in them to do what would have needed to be done, to corral and bloody and where necessary slaughter the migrants, and had determined that some other way would have to be found. Perhaps they had grasped that the doors could not be closed, and new doors would continue to open, and they had understood that the denial of coexistence would have required one party to cease to exist, and the extinguishing party too would have been transformed in the process, and too many native parents would not after have been able to look their children in the eye, to speak with head held high of what their generation had done.”
― Mohsin Hamid, quote from Exit West
“Have you seen a lot of women?"
"Wouldn't say a lot."
"And what were they like?"
"Naked.”
― J.P. Donleavy, quote from The Ginger Man
Hexed
Faking It
Loving Mr. Daniels
The Impossible Knife...
Bud, Not Buddy
FlirtBookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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