Scottish author (1954-2013)
That was how divorced from the human scale modern warfare had become. You could smash and destroy from unthinkable distances, obliterate planets from beyond their own system and provoke stars into novae from light-years off ... and still have no good idea why you were really fighting.
IAIN M. BANKS
Consider Phlebas
There are no gods, we are told, so I must make my own salvation.
IAIN M. BANKS
Use of Weapons
That's the trouble with people like them, I suppose; whenever you think you’re detecting the first signs of them starting to behave responsibly, it’s just them being even more devious and underhand than usual.
IAIN M. BANKS
Excession