In theory, I work an eight-hour day and a five-day week which means I can socialise with my pals who mostly have normal jobs like teaching and computer programming. – Iain Banks
My point has always been that, ever since the Industrial Revolution, science fiction has been the most important genre there is. – Iain Banks
You have to have something worth saying and then the ability to say it- writing’s a double skill, really. – Iain Banks
Even in my side of the world, I’ve been in publishing for what, 25 or 26 years, and it’s gone from being a gentlemen’s club to being a few big players, and it’s very corporatised. – Iain Banks
A lot of what the ‘Culture’ is about is a reaction to all the science fiction I was reading in my very early teens. – Iain Banks
Smell is a very animal thing, almost reptilian, where the more cerebral things like reading less so. – Iain Banks
I think a lot of people are frightened of technology and frightened of change, and the way to deal with something you’re frightened of is to make fun of it. That’s why science fiction fans are dismissed as geeks and nerds. – Iain Banks
I still find it hard to understand that anyone could argue that you can’t have machines that exhibit consciousness. – Iain Banks
As long as a film stays unmade, the book is entirely yours, it belongs to the writer. As soon as you make it into a film, suddenly more people see it than have ever read the book. – Iain Banks
I still have some of my old University essays, and I do still have my drawing book from primary year seven. – Iain Banks
‘Dead Air’ is full of rants; it’s a rant-based book. Yes, it’s self-indulgence. I plead guilty; mea culpa. – Iain Banks
Technology determines the possibilities of society. It doesn’t matter whether you start out from a fascist state or a communist state or a free-market state. – Iain Banks
I remember being shocked when I discovered some of my school pals didn’t have books in their homes. I thought it was like not having oxygen, or hot water. – Iain Banks
I think the future stopped looking American when you think back to Blade Runner and Neuromancer, when it started to look more Japanese. – Iain Banks
I’ve always loved Scotland, and I’m not a huge fan of big cities, to be honest. I like them to dip into for a bit, but I’m not sure I would want to live in one again. – Iain Banks
As a writer, you get to play, you get alter time, you get to come up with the smart lines and the clever comebacks you wish you’d thought of. – Iain Banks
I’m not a great believer in awards-of course the fact that I’ve never won one has nothing to do with it at all! – Iain Banks
I deliberately keep myself apart from a lot of stuff; I don’t Tweet, I don’t do Facebook, I don’t blog, and that’s largely because I spend my working life staring at a screen and hitting a keyboard, I am trying to cut down on that, not increase it. – Iain Banks
I love writing and can’t imagine not being able to do it. I want an easy life and if it had been difficult I wouldn’t be doing it. I do admire writers who do it even though it costs them. – Iain Banks
Most mainstream male fiction is littered with heroines, and female characters are basically so great, you want to fall in love with them. – Iain Banks
