Iain M. Banks

And what was glory but something that reduced the more there were of you to share it?

Never underestimate the sheer selfishness and stupidity of people.

That was the thing about traitors: they were people who’d already changed their minds at least once.

To a gun, all problems resolved into what could be shot at.

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.

Hell was always for other people.

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

“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.”

There now; cynical, paranoid and pessimistic. I think that completes the set, doesn’t it?

“Chay, you must be quiet now, and prepare to meet your maker.”

“I had no maker. My maker was the universe, or my parents.”

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.

“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.”