Iain M. Banks Quotes
Enjoy the top 170 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Iain M. Banks.

“There came a point when if a conspiracy was that powerful and subtle it became pointless to worry about it.”
— Iain M. Banks —
Perdition awaits at the end of a road constructed entirely from good intentions, the devil emerges from the details and hell abides in the small print.
— Iain M. Banks
If this goes badly and I make a crater, I want it named after me!
— Iain M. Banks
— Iain M. Banks
Insult, like many such feelings, is experienced in the soul of the person addressed; it is not something that can be granted or withheld by the person doing the addressing.
— Iain M. Banks
— Iain M. Banks
— Iain M. Banks
“I'm a fucking starship; I'm allowed to cheat.”
— Iain M. Banks
And was taken to the Forward Docks and a big, brightly lit hangar, where the Psychopath Class ex-Rapid Offensive Unit Frank Exchange of Views was waiting for her. Ulver laughed. 'It looks,' she snorted, 'like a dildo!' 'That's appropriate,' Churt Lyne said. 'Armed, it can fuck solar systems.
— Iain M. Banks
The Sublime. The almost tangible, entirely believable, mathematically verifiable nirvana just a few right-angle turns away from dear boring old reality: a vast, infinite, better-than-virtual ultra-existence with no Off switch, to which species and civilizations had been hauling their sorry tired-with-it-all behinds off to since - the story went - the galaxy had still been in metaphorical knee socks.
— Iain M. Banks
— Iain M. Banks
The good soldier did as he was told, and if he had any sense at all volunteered for nothing, especially promotion.
— Iain M. Banks
“Neeporlax presented something of a contrast.”
— Iain M. Banks
“The smell was that of a sewer under an abattoir.”
— Iain M. Banks
The ship left the construction bay of the factory craft with most of its fitting-out still to be done. Accelerating hard, its course a four-dimensional spiral through a blizzard of stars where it knew that only danger waited, it powered into hyperspace on spent engines from an overhauled craft of one class, watched its birthplace disappear astern with battle-damaged sensors from a second, and tested outdated weapon units cannibalized from yet another. Inside its warship body, in narrow, unlit, unheated, hard-vacuum spaces, constructor drones struggled to install or complete sensors, displacers, field generators, shield disruptors, laserfields, plasma chambers, warhead magazines, maneuvering units, repair systems and the thousands of other major and minor components required to make a functional warship. Gradually,
— 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 you couldn't see. He'd said that it was like being woken from a deep and satisfying sleep, to be asked questions while you kept your eyes closed. He was quite happy. Sight was over-rated anyway.
— Iain M. Banks
High in a turret of a great castle rising on a black crag above snowy plains, besieged and grand, crammed full of an empire's treasure, and he sitting by a log fire with a sad and lovely princess ... I used to dream about such things, he thought. I used to long for them, ache for them. They seemed the very stuff of life, its essence. So why does all this taste of ashes?
— Iain M. Banks
Hup! ... and here we are, waking up. Quick scan around, nothing immediately threatening, it would seem ... Hmm. Floating in space. Odd. Nobody else around. That's funny. View's a bit degraded. Oh-oh, that's a bad sign. Don't feel quite right, either. Stuff missing here ... Clock running way slow, like it's down amongst the electronics crap ... Run full system check ... Oh, good grief!
— Iain M. Banks
Bob-nodded toward the open module door. After you.
— Iain M. Banks
Living either never has any point, or is always its own point; being a naturally cheery soul, I lean towards the latter.
— Iain M. Banks
But there we are. Some things never do make perfect sense. There must be some explanation, and it is perhaps a little like the Doctrine of the Perfect Partner. We must be content to know that she exists, somewhere in the world, and try not to care overmuch that we will probably never meet her.
— Iain M. Banks
A temple was worth a dozen barracks; a militia man carrying a gun could control a small unarmed crowd only for as long as he was present; however, a single priest could put a policeman inside the head of every one of their flock, for ever.
— Iain M. Banks
I'm a fucking razor-arsed starship, you maniac! I'm not male, female or anything else except stupendously smart and right now tuned to smite. I don't give a fuck about flattering you. The few and frankly not vitally important sentiments I have concerning you I can switch off like flicking a switch.
— Iain M. Banks
— Iain M. Banks
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