[M]y determined and strenuous endeavors to take in absolutely nothing of what I had regarded as entirely the most irrelevant part of my schooling had patently not met with total success

— Iain M. Banks

Now, quite apart from the fact that, from the point of view of the Farther, socialism suffers the devastating liability of only exhibiting internal contradictions when you are trying to use it as an adjunct to your own stupidity (unlike capitalism, which again, from the point of view of the Farther, happily has them built in from the start), it is the case that because Free Enterprise got there first and set up the house rules, it will always stay at least one kick ahead of its rivals.

— Iain M. Banks

Oh, adjust yourself. You people have spent ten millennia playing at soldiers while becoming ever more dedicated civilians. We've spent the last thousand years trying hard to stay civilian while refining the legacy of a won galactic war.

— Iain M. Banks

On Earth one of the things that a large proportion of the locals is most proud of is this wonderful economic system which, with a sureness and certainty so comprehensive one could almost imagine the process bears some relation to their limited and limiting notions of either thermodynamics or God, all food, comfort, energy, shelter, space, fuel and sustenance gravitates naturally and easily away from those who need it most and towards those who need it least. Indeed, those on the receiving end of such largesse are often harmed unto death by its arrival, though the effects may take years and generations to manifest themselves.

— Iain M. Banks

One believed what one was told to believe, what it made sense to believe. Unless one was a foreigner, of course, or a philosopher.

— Iain M. Banks

One should never regret one's excesses, only one's failures of nerve.

— Iain M. Banks

Patience can be a means of letting matters mature to a proper state for action, not just a way of letting time slip away.

— Iain M. Banks

She'd asked him what it was like to be in there, doing nothing but then being woken up to speak to somebody you couldn't see. He'd said that it was like being woken from a deep and satisfying sleep, to be asked questions while you kept your eyes closed. He was quite happy. Sight was over-rated anyway.

— Iain M. Banks

That is the way with all of your kind… It is how you are made; you must all strive to claw your way over the backs of your fellow humans during the short time you are permitted in the universe, breeding when you can, so that the strongest strain survive and the weakest die. I would no more blame you for that than I would try to convert some non-sentient carnivore to vegetarianism. You are all on your own side.

— Iain M. Banks

That’s what we’ve lost, you know. What you’ve lost; all of you. A sense of wonder and awe and. . . Sin. These people know there are still things they don’t know, things that can still go wrong, things they can still do wrong.

— Iain M. Banks