-"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. Iain Banks More Quotes by Iain Banks More Quotes From Iain Banks Hersesy is denying the word of God, and the word of God is much more reliably expressed in the natural world as it’s revealed through reason and science than in what I have heard described wonderfully as “the giant book of Jewish fairy stories". Iain Banks fairy-stories giants book One should never regret one's excesses, only one's failures of nerve. Iain Banks excess nerves regret But it was pointless, it was stupid; he thought about thoughtless things. If I were a seabird . . . but how could you be a seabird? If you were a seabird your brain would be tiny and stupid and you would love half-rotted fish guts and tweaking the eyes out of little grazing animals; you would know no poetry and you could never appreciate flying as fully as the human on the ground yearning to be you. If you wanted to be a seabird you deserved to be one. Iain Banks eye stupid animal The bomb lives only as it is falling. Iain Banks bombs fall If this goes badly and I make a crater, I want it named after me! Iain Banks craters ifs want The History Of The Universe In Three Words CHAPTER ONE Bang! CHAPTER TWO sssss CHAPTER THREE crunch. THE END Iain Banks bangs three two I think we need politicians; we need people who want to serve. Iain Banks people needs thinking Reason shapes the future, but superstition infects the present. Iain Banks superstitions shapes reason What is any achievement, however great it was, once time itself is dead? Iain Banks achievement It was a truism that all civilizations were basically neurotic until they made contact with everybody else and found their place within the ever-changing meta-civilisation of other beings, because, until then, during the stage when they honestly believed they might be entirely alone in existence, all solo societies were possessed of both an inflated sense of their own importance and a kind of existential terror at the sheer scale and apparent emptiness of the universe. Iain Banks emptiness might civilization Well," he sighed to no one in particular, and looked up into yet another alien sky. "Here we are again. Iain Banks wells aliens sky "You like music, Mr. Gurgeh?" Hamin asked, leaning over to the man. Gurgeh nodded. "Well, a little does no harm." Iain Banks doe littles men "One of the advantages of having laws is the pleasure one may take in breaking them. We here are not children, Mr. Gurgeh." Hamin waved the pipestem round the tables of people. "Rules and laws exist only because we take pleasure in doing what they forbid, but as long as most of the people obey such proscriptions most of the time, they have done their job; blind obedience would imply we are - ha!" - Hamin chuckled and pointed at the drone with the pipe - "no more than robots!" Iain Banks law jobs children I'm a devoted husband. That must strike you as totally deviant. Iain Banks deviants strikes husband