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
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.
weapons
Tell me, what is happiness? - Use of Weapons
truth two rainbow
Truth, I have learned, differs for everybody. Just as no two people ever see a rainbow in exactly the same place - and yet both most certainly see it, while the person seemingly standing right underneath it does not see it at all - so truth is a question of where one stands, and the direction one is looking in at the time.
tears soup life-is
There's an old Sysan saying that the soup of life is salty enough without adding tears to it.
book character writing
I enjoy it too much - even if I knew I'd never get a book published, I would still write. I enjoy the experience of getting thoughts and ideas and plots and characters organised into this narrative framework.
real writing fiction
The trouble with writing fiction is that it has to make sense, whereas real life doesn't.
guilt guilty
A guilty system recognizes no innocents.
wings political polite
Political correctness is what right-wing bigots call what everybody else calls being polite
reality trying fiction
Science fiction is trying to find alternative ways of looking at realities.
writing skills ability
You have to have something worth saying and then the ability to say it- writing's a double skill, really.
running teacher thinking
People can be teachers and idiots; they can be philosophers and idiots; they can be politicians and idiots... in fact I think they have to be... a genius can be an idiot. The world is largely run for and by idiots; it is no great handicap in life and in certain areas is actually a distinct advantage and even a prerequisite for advancement.
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.
book usual film
By the usual reckoning, the worst books make the best films.
atheist cancer thinking
I just took [my cancer diagnosis] as bad luck, basically. It did strike me almost immediately, my atheist sort of thing kicked in and I thought "ha, if I was a God-botherer, I'd be thinking, why me God? What have I done to deserve this?" and I thought at least I'm free of that, at least I can simply treat it as bad luck and get on with it.