# Quote — Iain M. Banks, Use Of Weapons

> He had to give orders that meant men died, and sometimes sacrifice hundreds, thousands of them, knowingly sending them to their near-certain deaths, just to secure some important position or goal, or protect some vital position. And always, whether they liked it or not, the civilians suffered too; the very people they both claimed to be fighting for made up perhaps the bulk of the casualties in their bloody struggle.
>
> He had tried to stop it, tried to bargain, from the beginning, but neither side wanted peace on anything except its own terms, and he had no real political power, and so had had to fight.

- Author: [Iain M. Banks](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks.md)
- Book: [Use Of Weapons](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/use-of-weapons.md)
- Page: 443
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Iain_Banks#Use_of_Weapons_(1990)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/use-of-weapons/he-had-to-give

## More from this book

> He suspected the troops felt closer to somebody who spoke a different language but asked them questions than they did to somebody who shared their language and only ever used it to give orders.

p. 394 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/use-of-weapons/he-suspected-the.md)

> He shrugged. “Whatever.”
>
> “Aw, Darac, come on; argue, dammit.”
>
> “I don’t believe in argument,” he said, looking out into the darkness (and saw a towering ship, a capital ship, ringed with its layers and levels of armament and armor, dark against the dusk light, but not dead).
>
> “You don’t?” Erens said, genuinely surprised. “Shit, and I thought I was the cynical one.”
>
> “It’s not cynicism,” he said flatly. “I just think people overvalue argument because they like to hear themselves talk.”
>
> “Oh well, thank you.”
>
> “It’s comforting, I suppose.” He watched the stars wheel, like absurdly slow shells seen at night: rising, peaking, falling...(And reminded himself that the stars too would explode, perhaps, one day.) “Most people are not prepared to have their minds changed,” he said. “And I think they know in their hearts that other people are just the same, and one of the reasons people become angry when they argue is that they realize just that, as they trot out their excuses.”
>
> “Excuses, eh? Well, if this ain’t cynicism, what is?” Erens snorted.
>
> “Yes, excuses,” he said, with what Erens thought might just have been a trace of bitterness. “I strongly suspect the things people believe in are usually just what they instinctively feel is right; the excuses, the justifications, the things you’re supposed to argue about, come later. They’re the least important part of the belief. That’s why you can destroy them, win an argument, prove the other person wrong, and still they believe what they did in the first place.” He looked at Erens. “You’ve attacked the wrong thing.”

p. 417 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/use-of-weapons/he-shrugged-whatever.md)

> More than anything else now, though, he wanted to save Darckense. He had seen too many dead, dry eyes, too much air-blackened blood, too much fly-blown flesh, to be able to relate such ghastly truths to the nebulous ideas of honor and tradition that people claimed they were fighting for. Only the well-being of one loved person seemed really worth fighting for now; it was all that seemed real, all that could save his sanity.

p. 444 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/use-of-weapons/more-than-anything.md)