Hey, Robin; cheer up, yeah? You're going to shoot down a fucking starship. It'll be an experience.

— Iain Banks

I don't think you really belong here, Adviser." Notable nodded wisely, slowly. Aviger shrugged, and did not raise his eyes. "I don't think any of us do."" The brave belong where they decide." Some harshness entered the Indian's voice.

— Iain Banks

I just think people overvalue argument because they like to hear themselves talk.

— Iain Banks

I killed little Esmeralda because I felt I owed it to myself and to the world in general. I had, after all, accounted for two male children and thus done womankind something of a statistical favor. If I really had the courage of my convictions, I reasoned, I ought to redress the balance at least slightly. My cousin was simply the easiest and most obvious target.

— Iain Banks

In the end, he had to admit, he didn't really understand her. He didn't understand women. He didn't understand men. Furthermore, he didn't even understand children very well. All he really understood, he thought, was himself and the rest of the universe. Neither anything like completely, of course, but both well enough to know that what remained to be discovered would make sense; it would fit in, it could all be gradually and patiently fitted together a bit at a time, like an infinite jigsaw puzzle, with no straight edges to look for and no end in sight, but one in which there was always going to be somewhere for absolutely any piece to fit.

— Iain Banks

I sucked that smoke in and made it part of me, joined mystically with the universe right at that point, said Yes to drugs forever just by the unique hit I got from that one packet of fags Andy liberated from his dad. It was a revelation, an epiphany; a sudden realization that it was possible for matter - something there in front of you, in your hand, in your lungs, in your pocket - to take your brain apart and reassemble it in ways you hadn't thought of previously. This was better than religion, or this was what people meant by religion! The whole point was that this worked! People said Believe In God or Do Well At School or Buy This or Vote For Me or whatever, but nothing ever worked the way substances worked, nothing ever fucking delivered the way they did. They were truth. Everything else was falsehood.

— Iain Banks

I switched the light out again. The room was totally dark, not even the starlight showing while my eyes adjusted. Perhaps I would ask for one of those LED alarm radios, though I’m very fond of my old brass alarm clock. Once I tied a wasp tot the striking-surface of each of the copper-colored bells on top, where the little hammer would hit them in the morning when the alarm went off. I always wake up before the alarm goes, so I got to watch.

— Iain Banks

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

— Iain Banks

It is an ocean of burning oil I am cast adrift upon, no sea’s repose; I pass from waking agonies… to the semiconscious trance of torment in which the smaller, earlier, deeper rings of the brain know only that the nerves scream, the body aches, and there is no one to turn crying to for comfort.

— Iain Banks

It's like a sealed, forgotten chamber in me; I shan't feel complete until I've discovered its entrance.' 'Sounds like a tomb. Aren't you afraid of what you'll find in there?' 'It's a library; only the stupid and the evil are afraid of those.

— Iain Banks