Oh, they never lie. They dissemble, evade, prevaricate, confound, confuse, distract, obscure, subtly… — Iain M. Banks
Oh, they never lie. They dissemble, evade, prevaricate, confound, confuse, distract, obscure, subtly misrepresent and wilfully misunderstand with what often appears to be a positively gleeful relish and are generally perfectly capable of contriving to give one an utterly unambiguous impression of their future course of action while in fact intending to do exactly the opposite, but they never lie. Perish the thought.
p. 25Source: Wikiquote · CC BY-SA 4.0
More from this book
“You serious?”
“I’m always serious, never more so than when I’m being flippant.”
p. 231
Believe me; democracy in action can be an unpretty sight.
p. 198
“Elated? Pleased?”
“Those are the closest words. There is an undeniable elation in causing mayhem, in bringing about such massive destruction. As for feeling pleased, I felt pleasure that some of those who died did so because they were stupid enough to believe in gods or afterlives that do not exist, even though I felt a terrible sorrow for them as they died in their ignorance and thanks to their folly.”
p. 315
