“Any theory which causes solipsism to seem just as likely an explanation for the phenomena it seeks to describe ought to be held in the utmost suspicion.”
― Iain M. Banks, quote from The Algebraist
“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 M. Banks, quote from The Algebraist
“I have a story to tell you. It has many beginnings, and perhaps one ending. Perhaps not. Beginnings and endings are contingent things anyway; inventions, devices. Where does any story really begin? There is always context, always an encompassingly greater epic, always something before the described events, unless we are to start every story with “BANG! Expand! Sssss…,” then itemize the whole subsequent history of the universe before settling down, at last, to the particular tale in question. Similarly, no ending is final, unless it is the end of all things…”
― Iain M. Banks, quote from The Algebraist
“If I had to guess, nephew, I would surmise that you are not in direct trouble as such. However, I will confess to the distinct and unsettling feeling that very large, very ponderous and most momentous wheels have been set in motion. When that happens I believe the lessons of history tend to indicate that it is best not to be in their way. Even without meaning harm, the workings and progress of such wheels are on a scale which inevitably reduces the worth of individual lives to an irrelevance at best.”
― Iain M. Banks, quote from The Algebraist
“[H]e was one of those people who got to the top of an organisation through luck, connections, the indulgence of superiors and that sort of carelessness towards others that the easily impressed termed ruthlessness and those of a less gullible nature called sociopathy. But sometimes, just through his sheer unthinking brusqueness and inability to think through the consequences of a remark, he said what everybody else was only thinking. A comic poet working in obscene doggerel.”
― Iain M. Banks, quote from The Algebraist
Iain M. Banks
Born place: in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland
Born date February 16, 1954
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“My father was taking me as seriously as the Ringolds were, but not with Ira’s political fearlessness, with Murray’s literary ingenuity, above all, with their seeming absence of concern for my decorum, for whether I would or would not be a good boy. The Ringolds were the one-two punch promising to initiate me into the big show, into my beginning to understand what it takes to be a man on the larger scale. The Ringolds compelled me to respond at a level of rigor that felt appropriate to who I now was. Be a good boy wasn’t the issue with them. The sole issue was my convictions. But then, their responsibility wasn’t a father’s, which is to steer his son away from the pitfalls. The father has to worry about the pitfalls in a way the teacher doesn’t. He has to worry about his son’s conduct, he has to worry about socializing his little Tom Paine. But once little Tom Paine has been let into the company of men and the father is still educating him as a boy, the father is finished. Sure, he’s worrying about the pitfalls—if he wasn’t, it would be wrong. But he’s finished anyway. Little Tom Paine has no choice but to write him off, to betray the father and go boldly forth to step straight into life’s very first pit. And then, all on his own—providing real unity to his existence—to step from pit to pit for the rest of his days, until the grave, which, if it has nothing else to recommend it, is at least the last pit into which one can fall.”
― Philip Roth, quote from I Married a Communist
“When I was twenty they told me to swear loyalty to the King, a person who acts in the capacity because his father and grandfather did the same before him. I took the oath because they forced my to, otherwise I wouldn't have done it. Then they sent me to kill people I didn't know who were dressed rather like I was. One day they said to me: "Look, there's one of your enemies, fire at him," and I fired, but missed. But he fired and wounded me. I don't know why they said it was a glorious wound.”
― Pitigrilli, quote from Cocaine
“You’ll fight, damn it. You’ll not give over this easily. God is not ready for you yet because I am not through with you. You’re going to wake up and you’re going to give me the words I’ve waited on for so long. Telling me you love me on the battlefield as we both lay dying doesn’t count. You’ll give them to me and mean them or so help me I’ll bury you in unconsecrated ground so that you never rest and you’ll be forced to dwell in this keep with me for eternity.”
― Maya Banks, quote from Never Love a Highlander
“Beauty isn’t about meeting some holo-star standard, it’s about being you. Because looks come and go. But nobody else can be you.”
― Lissa Price, quote from Enders
“He was to be their page, their book, the vessel for their autobiographies. A book of blood. A book made of blood. A book written in blood.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Books of Blood: Volume One
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