The History Of The Universe In Three Words CHAPTER ONE Bang! CHAPTER TWO sssss CHAPTER THREE crunch. THE END

Iain Banks

Categorized in : Two Three Bangs

Torture is such a slippery slope; as soon as you allow a society or any legal system to do that, almost instantly you get a situation where people are being tortured for very trivial reasons.

slippery-slope legal-system people

I am, as I have always been, of the opinion that while the niceties of normal moral constraints should be our guides, they must not be our masters.

morality normal opinion

Any such inklings were like a few scattered grains of truth dissolved in an ocean of nonsense, and were anyway generally inextricably bound up with patently paranoid ravings which served only to devalue the small amounts of sense and pertinence with which they were associated.

devalue nonsense ocean

Science fiction has its own history, its own legacy of what's been done, what's been superseded, what's so much part of the furniture it's practically part of the fabric now, what's become no more than a joke... and so on. It's just plain foolish, as well as comically arrogant, to ignore all this, to fail to do the most basic research.

fabric legacy fiction

In theory, I work an eight-hour day and a five-day week which means I can socialise with my pals who mostly have normal jobs like teaching and computer programming.

teaching jobs mean

That was how divorced from the human scale modern warfare had become. You could smash and destroy from unthinkable distances, obliterate planets from beyond their own system and provoke stars into novae from light-years off... and still have no good idea why you were really fighting.

distance fighting stars

What is all your studying worth, all your learning, all your knowledge, if it doesn't lead to wisdom? And what's wisdom but knowing what is right, and what is the right thing to do?

things-to-do study knowing

I'm from out of town," he said breezily. This was true. He'd never been within a hundred light-years of the place.

towns light years

I'm an only child so am happy with my own company and I don't rea... by Iain Banks

I'm an only child so am happy with my own company and I don't really get lonely.

only-child lonely children

I still have some of my old University essays, and I do still have my drawing book from primary year seven.

drawing book years

The truth is not always useful, not always good. It’s like putting your faith in water. Yes, we need the rain, but too much can sweep you away in a flood and drown you. Like all great natural, elemental forces, the truth needs to be channeled, managed, controlled and intelligently, morally allocated.

rain water needs

"Don't you have a religion?" Dorolow asked Horza. by Iain Banks

"Don't you have a religion?" Dorolow asked Horza.

wall survival eye

My greatest enemies are Women and the Sea. These things I hate. Women because they are weak and stupid and live in the shadow of men and are nothing compared to them, and the Sea because it has always frustrated me, destroying what I have built, washing away what I have left, wiping clean the marks I have made.

hate stupid men

I 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 hitting a keyboard, I am trying to cut down on that, not increase it.

hitting cutting trying

I think the easiest people to fool are ourselves. Fooling ourselves may even be a necessary precondition for fooling others.

may people thinking

It gripped her hand gently. 'Regret is for humans,' it said. She laughed. 'Really?' The machine shrugged and let go of her hand. 'Oh, no. It's just something we tell ourselves.

regret letting-go hands

What's one more meaningless act of violence on that zoo of a planet? It would be appropriate. When in Rome; burn it.

rome violence zoos

It's a library, only the stupid or the evil are afraid of those by Iain Banks

It's a library, only the stupid or the evil are afraid of those

library stupid evil

-"Then what," Lededje asked, trying to keep her voice cold and not get caught up in the avatar´s obvious enthusiasm, "is making you smile about a disaster?" -"Well, first, I didn´t cause it! Nothing to do with me, hands clean. Always a bonus.

voice trying hands

They speak very well of you". - "They speak very well of everybody." - "That so bad?" - "Yes. It means you can´t trust them.

cynical speak mean