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
people legal-system slippery-slope
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.
book long people
As long as a film stays unmade, the book is entirely yours, it belongs to the writer. As soon as you make it into a film, suddenly more people see it than have ever read the book.
thinking people argument
I just think people overvalue argument because they like to hear themselves talk.
thinking people fool
I think the easiest people to fool are ourselves. Fooling ourselves may even be a necessary precondition for fooling others.
heart thinking people
Most people are not prepared to have their minds changed, and I think they know in their hearts that other people are just the same, and one of the reasons people become angry when they argue is that they realize just that, as they trot out their excuses.
thinking people want
I think we need politicians; we need people who want to serve.
fun writing people
Half the fun of writing a novel is finding out from other people later on what you actually meant.
sorry feel-better people
People were always sorry. Sorry they had done what they had done, sorry they were doing what they were doing, sorry they were going to do what they were going to do; but they still did whatever it is. The sorrow never stopped them; it just made them feel better. And so the sorrow never stopped.
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.
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
weapons
Tell me, what is happiness? - Use of Weapons
discovered hot school shocked
I remember being shocked when I discovered some of my school pals didn't have books in their homes. I thought it was like not having oxygen, or hot water.
bits easier gets longer pick scottish-writer stories
I just pick up my stories as I amble along, little bits of this, little bits of that. It gets easier the longer you've been at it.
thinking drunk judging
I'm too drunk to recall much of what I've said. Which, come to think of it, is probably just as well, judging by the way people who are normally quite sensible dissolve into gibbering, rude, opinionated and bombastic idiots once the alcohol molecules in their bloom-stream outnumber the neutrons, or whatever. Luckily, one only notices this if one stays sober oneself, so the solution is as pleasant (at the time, at least) as it is obvious.