# Quote — Iain M. Banks, Transition

> Madame d’Ortolan is one of those people – civilised on the surface, brutish underneath – who think themselves realists when they contemplate their own barbarism, and ascribe the same callousness to others. Making the assumption that everybody else is as ruthless as she is helps her live with her own inhumanity, though she would justify it as simple prudence. She knows how she would deal with somebody like herself: she’d kill them. So she assumes those who oppose her must be planning the same, or shortly will. Obviously, then, by her demented logic, she needs to kill them before they kill her. She will think through this psychotic escalation without any evidence that her opponents actually do intend her harm and she’ll pride herself on her disinterested practicality, probably even persuading herself that she bears those she has marked for death no personal ill will. It’s just politics.

- Author: [Iain M. Banks](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks.md)
- Book: [Transition](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/transition.md)
- Page: 338
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Iain_Banks#Transition_(2009)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/transition/madame-dortolan-is-one

## More from this book

> It’s even more important to prosecute police who’ve broken the law than it is to prosecute anybody else, because otherwise nobody trusts the police.

p. 266 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/transition/its-even-more.md)

> I only tell them that because that’s what they like to hear, what they want to hear. That’s one of the lessons I’ve learned, isn’t it? You can go a long way just telling people what they want to hear. Of course, you got to be careful, and you got to choose the right people, but still, know that I mean?

p. 16 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/transition/i-only-tell.md)

> One of the wisest things anybody ever said to me was that if all you ever care about is money, money is all that will ever care for you.

p. 65 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/transition/one-of-the.md)