Quotes from Iain Banks

And even a small amount of talent can go an appallingly long way, these days.

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.

Well, it is always easier to succeed at death.

As a writer, you get to play, you get to alter time, you get to come up with the smart lines and the clever comebacks you wish you'd thought of.

Once you get over the simple unpleasantness of it - I suspect most people would gag, the first time - it is easier to wipe somebody else's bum than it is your own, because you can see what you're doing and use both hands at once if necessary. The whole process is much more efficient and uses no more toilet paper than is strictly required, so it's better for the environment, too. If we were really green we'd all have somebody else wipe our bums, though I can't see it catching on.

This is so much like the old days. And, again, I have mixed feelings. In some ways it's good and comfortable to be fitting straight back in like I've never been away, but, on the other hand, I'm getting this constrictive feeling as well. It's the same places - like the bars and pubs on Friday night - the same people, the same conversations, the same arguments and the same attitudes. Five years away and not much seems to have changed. I can't decide if this is good or bad.

Thinking what had happened over in my mind, trying to figure out the whys and wherefores, see what lessons were to be learned, what signs to be read in it all.

He remembers night, sleep, the bed, their shared comas, A certain source of fondness in the night. (She saw, no, expected, a dawn from every light. Such was her fault)

All our lives are symbols. Everything we do is part of a pattern we have at least some say in. The strong make their own patterns and influence other people's, the weak have their courses mapped out for them. The weak are the unlucky, and the stupid.

All reality is a game.

Aye,' McCann said ruefully, 'if yer rich yer just eccentric; if yer poor yer a nutcase an they stick ye in the bin.

I don't think you really belong here, Aviger. Xoxarle nodded wisely, slowly. Aviger shrugged, and did not raise his eyes. I don't think any of us do. The brave belong where they decide. Some harshness entered the Idiran's voice.

There was a layer of grey-blue smoke in the room at about shoulder level, and a big wave in it, probably produced by me as I came in through the double doors of the back porch. The wave rose slowly between us while my father stared at me.

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

that single embodiment of a world crippled by its legacy of recent cruelties and a self-lacerating worship of the proceeds of selfishness and greed.

He could describe walking towards the Taj Mahal – ho-hum, thinks the reader, immediately in the realm of the tacky postcard – and still give you a wholly fresh impression of the exact scale and actual presence of that white tomb; delicate but powerful, compact and yet boundlessly imposing. Epic grace. With those two words he encapsulated it, and you knew exactly what he meant.

Blame Lewis.

He would never forget the feeling of that first year, the sense of freedom just being on his own gave him. He had his own room for the first time, his own money to spend as he wanted, his own food to buy and places to go and decisions to make; it was glorious, sublime.

1/ Serene 2/ In a world full of troubles 3/ i.e. Doing nothing about it.

I luv the ded, this old baster sez to me when I wiz tryin to get some innfurmashin out ov him. You fukin old pervirt I sez, gettin a bit fed up by this time enyway, an slit his throate; ah asks you whare the fukin Sleeping Byootie woz, no whit kind of humpin you lyke.

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 suppose it has gone out of fashion and they are out spraying slogans on walls, sniffing glue or trying to get laid.

That's the thing about a good porter"–and he shrugged, or shook his head and sounded so rueful and sort of growly as he said, "Deals with all your baggage.

They were here, and then they weren't, and that was all there was.