# The Hydrogen Sonata

- Author: [Iain M. Banks](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks.md)
- Quotes: 35
- Book page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/the-hydrogen-sonata

## Quotes

> Ah, dear. How fine the line is between acceptably defiant bravado and hopelessly delusional boasting.

p. 361 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/the-hydrogen-sonata/ah-dear-how.md)

> ~My full name is the Mistake Not My Current State Of Joshing Gentle Peevishness For The Awesome And Terrible Majesty Of The Towering Seas Of Ire That Are Themselves The Mere Milquetoast Shallows Fringing My Vast Oceans Of Wrath. Cool, eh?

p. 502 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/the-hydrogen-sonata/my-full-name.md)

> “Have you always been so suspicious, Banstegeyn?”
>
> He looked at her, unsmiling. “No, I stumbled into a position of great power quite by accident.”

p. 443 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/the-hydrogen-sonata/have-you-always.md)

> “I do believe my sarcasm-meter just twitched.”
>
> “A false positive, I fear. I was being entirely sincere.”

p. 291 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/the-hydrogen-sonata/i-do-believe.md)

> The truth is the truth. You tell it even when it hurts or it loses value even when it doesn’t.

p. 505 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/the-hydrogen-sonata/the-truth-is-the.md)

> Promises take many shapes, and the more…momentous they are, the more they might look like threats. All great promises are threats, I suppose, to the way things have been until that point, to some aspect of our lives, and we all suddenly become conservative, even though we want and need what the promise holds, and look forward to the promised change at the same time.

p. 388 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/the-hydrogen-sonata/promises-take-many.md)

> “I have buffed and polished my medals for decades of steady, dedicated watchfulness,” the marshal continued, clasping her hands behind her head as she leaned back and relaxed, legs crossed, “counted and re-counted my medals for outstanding work in simulations and exercises, carefully rearranged my medals for heroic bravery under virtual fire, and even found room for my many, many medals for exemplary valour in the face of fellow officers coveting the same promotions as I.”

p. 443 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/the-hydrogen-sonata/i-have-buffed.md)

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

p. 462 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/the-hydrogen-sonata/one-should-never-regret.md)

> We all think we’re special, and in a way we are, but, at the same time, that feeling of being special is one of the things that’s common to us all, that unites us and makes us the same as each other. And when that feeling of…specialness is questioned, we feel threatened, naturally.

p. 388 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/the-hydrogen-sonata/we-all-think.md)

> The news channels are spasming, or frothing, or whatever it is they do.

p. 394 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/the-hydrogen-sonata/the-news-channels.md)

> “The person concerned sounds – to be polite – eccentric.”
>
> “That would be polite to the point of over-generosity,” Tefwe said. “Awkward, tetchy and unreasonable might be closer to the truth.”

p. 263 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/the-hydrogen-sonata/the-person-concerned.md)

> “Well,” the voice said, seemingly oblivious, “one thing that does happen when you live a long time is that you start to realise the essential futility of so much that we do, especially when you see the same patterns of behaviour repeated by succeeding generations and across different species. You see the same dreams, the same hopes, the same ambitions and aspirations, reiterated, and the same actions, the same courses and tactics and strategies, regurgitated, to the same predictable and often lamentable effects, and you start to think, So? Does it really matter? Why really are you bothering with all this? Are these not just further doomed, asinine ways of attempting to fill your vacuous, pointless existence, wedged slivered as it is between the boundless infinitudes of dark oblivion bookending its utter triviality?”
>
> “Uh-huh,” she said. “Is this a rhetorical question?”
>
> “It is a mistaken question. Meaning is everywhere. There is always meaning. Or at least all things show a disturbing tendency to have meaning ascribed to them when intelligent creatures are present. It’s just that there’s no final Meaning, with a capital M. Though the illusion that there might be is comforting for a certain class of mind.”

p. 210 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/the-hydrogen-sonata/well-the-voice.md)

> “I take comfort in the loyalty and faith you display towards your crew, Captain.”
>
> “My crew are loyal to me, Colonel; I am only loyal to the regiment and Gzilt. Also, faith is belief without reason; we operate on reason and nothing but. I have zero faith in my crew, just absolute confidence.”

p. 249 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/the-hydrogen-sonata/i-take-comfort.md)

> “That seems obsessive.”
>
> “Meticulous care can seem so to those unwilling to recognise it for its true worth.”

p. 295 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/the-hydrogen-sonata/that-seems-obsessive.md)

> I have lived ten thousand years; I am used to it. Lovers dying, civilisations dying…one develops a certain god-like indifference to it all, intellectually.

p. 317 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/the-hydrogen-sonata/i-have-lived.md)

> Trust me; it is rarely an encouraging sign when the more apparel is removed, the less attractive a prospective sexual partner becomes.

p. 316 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/the-hydrogen-sonata/trust-me-it-is-rarely.md)

> Obsession is just what those too timorous to follow an idea through to its logical conclusion call determination.

p. 308 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/the-hydrogen-sonata/obsession-is-just.md)

> Ignorance can be interesting.
>
> ∞
>
> Also fatal.

p. 303 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/the-hydrogen-sonata/ignorance-can-be-interesting.md)

> “Anyway, it was all terribly well organised. Done with military precision.” He barked a laugh. “Better than that, actually; didn’t miss and hit their own people.”

p. 204 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/the-hydrogen-sonata/anyway-it-was.md)

> Never underestimate the sheer selfishness and stupidity of people.

p. 92 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/the-hydrogen-sonata/never-underestimate-the.md)

> She hadn’t forgotten all her military training; one point she certainly recalled being taught was that anything that looked like an outrageous coincidence was probably enemy action.

p. 177 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/the-hydrogen-sonata/she-hadnt-forgotten.md)

> The Real – with its vast volumes of nothing between the planets, stars, systems and galaxies – was basically mostly vacuum; an averaged near-nothing incapable of true complexity due to its inescapable impoverishment of structure and the sheer overwhelming majority of nothingness over substance.

p. 149 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/the-hydrogen-sonata/the-real-with.md)

> We really are taking this person’s existence as being a fact, not a myth?
>
> ∞
>
> We are. It turns out that the myth which has been so carefully fostered is that his existence is mythical.

p. 200 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/the-hydrogen-sonata/we-really-are.md)

> We are largely the sum of all we’ve done, and to dispose of that knowledge would be to stop being one’s self.

p. 174 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/the-hydrogen-sonata/we-are-largely.md)

> “His opinion was: ‘as a challenge, without peer. As music, without merit.’”

p. 33 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/the-hydrogen-sonata/his-opinion-was.md)

> The reaction was…mixed. Some people…hated it…others…really hated it.

p. 124 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/the-hydrogen-sonata/the-reaction-was-mixed.md)

> “So,” she said, “living all this time has been to no purpose, basically.”
>
> “True, but that hardly distinguishes me from anybody else, does it?”
>
> “But shouldn’t it, or there’s no point?”
>
> “No. Living either never has any point, or is always its own point; being a naturally cheery soul, I lean toward the latter. However, just having done more of it than another person doesn’t really make much difference.”

p. 210 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/the-hydrogen-sonata/so-she-said.md)

> All of which might make things a little difficult operationally
>
> ∞
>
> Understood. Life is limitations.
>
> ∞
>
> And glibness, patently, on occasion, too. Your pardon, but I sense motions being gone through.
>
> ∞
>
> On occasion, a superfluity of assiduousness can be vulgar.

p. 145 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/the-hydrogen-sonata/all-of-which.md)

> “I shall take that as meaning I am not being too hopelessly foolish.”
>
> “You may still be, but then so may I.”
>
> “Yes, well, let’s not make a competition out of it.”

p. 151 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/the-hydrogen-sonata/i-shall-take.md)

> Of course there were doubts about it, there always had been; when you found out about all the other holy books there had ever been throughout the histories of other peoples throughout the galaxy, you realised how common they were, and how fallible, how restricted they were by the usual tribal prejudices and traditions of the people who – it took real blind faith not to accept – had made them up.

p. 111 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/the-hydrogen-sonata/of-course-there.md)

> He, Tik…hated clashing, atonal music. He was basically…taking the piss, showing how…easy it was to write…how difficult to…listen to.

p. 127 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/the-hydrogen-sonata/he-tik-hated-clashing.md)

> “So why are we bothering?”
>
> “Just in case.”
>
> “Just in case what?”
>
> “Just in case it turns out to be something we should have bothered about. Always try to avoid setting up future opportunities for kicking yourself.”

p. 207 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/the-hydrogen-sonata/so-why-are.md)

> It rarely paid to frighten the masses, and it never paid to confuse them.

p. 92 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/the-hydrogen-sonata/it-rarely-paid.md)

> Here’s some thing we don’t know but we can maybe find out, and it’s something that other people don’t want us to know. How much more seductive can you get?

p. 202 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/the-hydrogen-sonata/heres-some-thing.md)

> One should never mistake pattern…for meaning.

p. 127 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/the-hydrogen-sonata/one-should-never.md)