# Quote — Iain M. Banks, Transition

> There is a saying that some foolish people believe: what does not kill you makes you stronger. I know for a fact, having seen the evidence – indeed, often enough having been the cause of it – that what does not kill you can leave you maimed. Or crippled, or begging for death or in one of those ghastly twilights experienced – and one has to hope that that is entirely not the right word – by those in a locked-in or persistent vegetative state. In my experience the same people also believe that everything happens for a reason. Given the unalleviatedly barbarous history of every world we have ever encountered with anything resembling Man in it, this is a statement of quite breathtakingly casual retrospective and ongoing cruelty, tantamount to the condonation of the most severe and unforgivable sadism.

- Author: [Iain M. Banks](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks.md)
- Book: [Transition](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/transition.md)
- Page: 274
- 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/there-is-a-saying

## 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)