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The trouble with writing fiction is that it has to make sense, whereas real life doesn't.

Iain Banks

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Iain Banks
Age: 59 †
Born: 1954
Born: February 16
Died: 2013
Died: June 9
Author
Novelist
Philosopher
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Iain M. Banks
Iain Menzies Banks
Sense
Doesn
Real
Writing
Make
Life
Whereas
Fiction
Trouble

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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?
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You have to have something worth saying and then the ability to say it- writing's a double skill, really.
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You're a wicked man. Thank you. It's taken years of diligent practice.
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What is any achievement, however great it was, once time itself is dead?
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I'm from out of town, he said breezily. This was true. He'd never been within a hundred light-years of the place.
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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.
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I just come up with the stories and write them as well as I can. There's not really a great deal of strokey-beard thinking going on.
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Most mainstream male fiction is littered with heroines, and female characters are basically so great, you want to fall in love with them.
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...and I confess that, like a child, I cry. Ah, self-pity I think we are at our most honest and sincere when we feel sorry for ourselves.
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Smell is a very animal thing, almost reptilian, where the more cerebral things like reading less so.
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After doing extensive research, I can definitely tell you that single malt whiskies are good to drink.
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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.
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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.
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In so much of politics you're not allowed to disagree with what's been agreed.
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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.
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If this goes badly and I make a crater, I want it named after me!
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-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.
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My gratitude extends beyond the limits of my capacity to express it.
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Intellectual achievement. The exercise of skill. Human feeling.
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Something in your voice tells me we approach the question of remuneration.
Iain Banks