218 Quotes by Iain Banks

Well, it is always easier to succeed at death.

I brought my face up and put my head back, baring my neck to the wind like a lover, to the rain like an offering.

Though drones, avatars and even humans are one thing; the loss of any is not without moral and diplomatic import, of course, but might be dismissed as merely unfortunate and regrettable, something to be smoothed over through the usual channels. Attacking a ship, on the other hand, is an unambiguous act of war.

Here, in the bare dark face of night A calm unhurried eye draws sight We see in what we think we fear The cloudings of our thought made clear.

A lot of what the ‘Culture’ is about is a reaction to all the science fiction I was reading in my very early teens.

The 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 decency, fanaticism before fairness, and our own trivial comforts before the unspeakable agonies of others.

I wouldn’t like to be a character in one of my books!

I still find it hard to understand that anyone could argue that you can’t have machines that exhibit consciousness.

The music machine played away – far away – and when I started to understand the lyrics of a Cocteau Twins song, I knew I was wrecked.