Quote

Intellectual achievement. The exercise of skill. Human feeling.

Iain Banks

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Feelings
Human
Humans
Skill
Achievement
Skills
Intellectual
Exercise
Feeling

More quotes by Iain Banks

Image
Even galaxy-spanning anarchist utopias of stupefying full-spectrum civilisational power have turf wars within their unacknowledged militaries.
Iain Banks
Image
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.
Iain Banks
Image
It's a library, only the stupid or the evil are afraid of those
Iain Banks
Image
Science fiction is trying to find alternative ways of looking at realities.
Iain Banks
Image
There's an old Sysan saying that the soup of life is salty enough without adding tears to it.
Iain Banks
Image
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.
Iain Banks
Image
I held my crotch, closed my eyes and repeated my secret catechism.
Iain Banks
Image
Smell is a very animal thing, almost reptilian, where the more cerebral things like reading less so.
Iain Banks
Image
Science fiction has its own history, its own legacy of what's been done, what's been superseded, what's so much part of the furniture it's practically part of the fabric now, what's become no more than a joke... and so on. It's just plain foolish, as well as comically arrogant, to ignore all this, to fail to do the most basic research.
Iain Banks
Image
-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
Image
Dead Air' is full of rants it's a rant-based book. Yes, it's self-indulgence. I plead guilty mea culpa.
Iain Banks
Image
You need to read more science fiction. Nobody who reads science fiction comes out with this crap about the end of history
Iain Banks
Image
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
Iain Banks
Image
Something in your voice tells me we approach the question of remuneration.
Iain Banks
Image
I think we need politicians we need people who want to serve.
Iain Banks
Image
He knew all the answers. Everybody did. Everybody knew everything and everybody knew all the answers. It was just that the enemy seemed to know better ones.
Iain Banks
Image
Here, in the bare dark face of night A calm unhurried eye draws sight We see in what we think we fear The cloudings of our thought made clear
Iain Banks
Image
...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.
Iain Banks
Image
Well, he sighed to no one in particular, and looked up into yet another alien sky. Here we are again.
Iain Banks
Image
My gratitude extends beyond the limits of my capacity to express it.
Iain Banks