Iain BanksThey speak very well of you. - They speak very well of everybody. - That so bad? - Yes. It means you can´t trust them.371Thought
Iain BanksIf this goes badly and I make a crater, I want it named after me! ✨ Iain M. Banks (2008). Against A Dark Background, p.199, Hachette UK363Humanity
Iain BanksI enjoy it too much - even if I knew I'd never get a book published, I would still write. I enjoy the experience of getting thoughts and ideas and plots and characters organised i… ▶374LifeReadingThought
Iain BanksYou need to read more science fiction. Nobody who reads science fiction comes out with this crap about the end of history343Reading
Iain BanksOne of your American professors said that to study religion was merely to know the mind of man, but if one truly wanted to know the mind of God, you must study physics. ✨ Ia… ▶311ReadingThought
Iain BanksI deliberately keep myself apart from a lot of stuff; I don't Tweet, I don't do Facebook, I don't blog, and that's largely because I spend my working life staring at a screen and … ▶378LifeReading
Iain BanksOur lives are about development, mutation and the possibility of change; that is almost a definition of what life is: change... If you disable change, if you effectively stop time… ▶368DeathLifeTime
Iain BanksAfter doing extensive research, I can definitely tell you that single malt whiskies are good to drink.346Humor
Iain BanksEscape is a consumer goods like another313Time
Iain BanksI'm not a great believer in awards-of course the fact that I've never won one has nothing to do with it at all!292Truth
Iain BanksPeople can be teachers and idiots; they can be philosophers and idiots; they can be politicians and idiots... in fact I think they have to be... a genius can be an idiot. The worl… ▶336HumanityLifePolitics
Iain BanksI still have some of my old University essays, and I do still have my drawing book from primary year seven.282Reading
Iain BanksIt's a library, only the stupid or the evil are afraid of those349Reading
Iain BanksEven galaxy-spanning anarchist utopias of stupefying full-spectrum civilisational power have turf wars within their unacknowledged militaries. ✨ Iain Banks (2008). Matter, O… ▶305PoliticsReading
Iain BanksMy gratitude extends beyond the limits of my capacity to express it. ✨ Iain M. Banks (2008). The Player Of Games: A Culture Novel, p.151, Hachette UK294Reading
Iain BanksThe point is, there is no feasible excuse for what are, for what we have made of ourselves. We have chosen to put profits before people, money before morality, dividends before de… ▶349Humanity
Iain BanksAn Outside Context Problem was the sort of thing most civilisations encountered just once, and which they tended to encounter rather in the same way a sentence encountered a full … ▶305Thought
Iain BanksThe trouble with writing fiction is that it has to make sense, whereas real life doesn't. ✨ Iain Banks: the final interview. Interview with Stuart Kelly, www.theguardian.com… ▶316Life
Iain BanksI think the easiest people to fool are ourselves. Fooling ourselves may even be a necessary precondition for fooling others. ✨ Iain Banks (1986). The bridge306HumanityThought
Iain BanksPeople were always sorry. Sorry they had done what they had done, sorry they were doing what they were doing, sorry they were going to do what they were going to do; but they stil… ▶328HumanitySadness
Iain BanksAs a writer, you get to play, you get alter time, you get to come up with the smart lines and the clever comebacks you wish you'd thought of.328ThoughtTime
Iain BanksHe 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 M. Banks … ▶286Time
Iain BanksIntellectual achievement. The exercise of skill. Human feeling. ✨ Iain M. Banks (2008). The Player Of Games: A Culture Novel, p.10, Hachette UK231HumanityReading
Iain BanksAny 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.3110Truth
Iain BanksAs long as a film stays unmade, the book is entirely yours, it belongs to the writer. As soon as you make it into a film, suddenly more people see it than have ever read the book.276HumanityReading
Iain BanksMy point has always been that, ever since the Industrial Revolution, science fiction has been the most important genre there is. ✨ Interview with Ken Livingstone, www.newsta… ▶265LifePolitics
Iain BanksOne should never mistake pattern for meaning.222Philosophy
Iain BanksThe History Of The Universe In Three Words CHAPTER ONE Bang! CHAPTER TWO sssss CHAPTER THREE crunch. THE END211Philosophy
Iain BanksWriting 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 f… ▶245Time
Iain BanksStories set in the Culture in which Things Went Wrong tended to start with humans losing or forgetting or deliberately leaving behind their terminal. It was a conventional opening… ▶245Humanity
