# Quote — Iain M. Banks, The Hydrogen Sonata

> 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.

- Author: [Iain M. Banks](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks.md)
- Book: [The Hydrogen Sonata](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/the-hydrogen-sonata.md)
- Page: 149
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Iain_Banks#The_Hydrogen_Sonata_(2013)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/the-hydrogen-sonata/the-real-with

## More from this book

> 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)