Quotes About Iain Banks

You're a wicked man." "Thank you. It's taken years of diligent practice.

"You like music, Mr. Gurgeh?" Hamin asked, leaning over to the man. Gurgeh nodded. "Well, a little does no harm."

'Dead Air' is full of rants; it's a rant-based book. Yes, it's self-indulgence. I plead guilty; mea culpa.

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

I always like Iain Banks science fiction stuff and William Gibson's cyberpunk stuff from the 1980s.

I don't really do themes. I might accidentally, but themes are an emergent phenomena of the writing of the book, of just trying to get a story out there.

Willy, one of the guys at the distillery, comes up with what Oliver and I agree is the best definition of what a 'dram' actually is: 'A measure of whisky that is pleasing to both guest and host.

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.

In a 2002 interview with Science Fiction Weekly magazine, when asked: Excession is particularly popular because of its copious detail concerning the Ships and Minds of the Culture, its great AIs: their outrageous names, their dangerous senses of humour. Is this what gods would actually be like? Banks replied: If we're lucky.

Most mainstream male fiction is littered with heroines, and female characters are basically so great, you want to fall in love with them.

Libertarianism. A simple-minded right-wing ideology ideally suited to those unable or unwilling to see past their own sociopathic self-regard.