Iain Banks
Iain Banks
Iain Bankswas a Scottish author. He wrote mainstream fiction under the name Iain Banks and science fiction as Iain M. Banks, including the initial of his adopted middle name Menzies...
NationalityScottish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth16 February 1954
strong stupid people
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 and the unlucky, and the stupid.
atheist cancer thinking
I just took [my cancer diagnosis] as bad luck, basically. It did strike me almost immediately, my atheist sort of thing kicked in and I thought "ha, if I was a God-botherer, I'd be thinking, why me God? What have I done to deserve this?" and I thought at least I'm free of that, at least I can simply treat it as bad luck and get on with it.
agony people comfort
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
running teacher thinking
People can be teachers and idiots; they can be philosophers and idiots; they can be politicians and idiots... in fact I think they have to be... a genius can be an idiot. The world is largely run for and by idiots; it is no great handicap in life and in certain areas is actually a distinct advantage and even a prerequisite for advancement.
needs fiction ends
You need to read more science fiction. Nobody who reads science fiction comes out with this crap about the end of history
simple expression comfort
There has seldom if ever a shortage of eager young males prepared to kill and die to preserve the security, comfort and prejudices of their elders, and what you call heroism is just an expression of this simple fact; there is never a scarcity of idiots.
causes theory suspicion
Any theory which causes solipsism to seem just as likely an explanation for the phenomena it seeks to describe ought to be held in the utmost suspicion.
writing skills ability
You have to have something worth saying and then the ability to say it- writing's a double skill, really.
wings political polite
Political correctness is what right-wing bigots call what everybody else calls being polite
guilt guilty
A guilty system recognizes no innocents.
clever smart play
As a writer, you get to play, you get alter time, you get to come up with the smart lines and the clever comebacks you wish you'd thought of.
real writing fiction
The trouble with writing fiction is that it has to make sense, whereas real life doesn't.
reality trying fiction
Science fiction is trying to find alternative ways of looking at realities.
men mind study
One of your American professors said that to study religion was merely to know the mind of man, but if one truly wanted to know the mind of God, you must study physics.