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Empires are synonymous with c...

Empires are synonymous with centralized if occasionally schismatized hierarchical power structures in which influence is restricted to an economically privileged class retaining its advantages through usually a judicious use of oppression and skilled manipulation of both the society's information dissemination systems and its lesser as a rule nominally independent power systems. In short, it's all about dominance.

Iain Banks 122 quotes

I'm an only child so am happy...

I'm an only child so am happy with my own company and I don't really get lonely.

Iain Banks 122 quotes

There is a quite a lot of eff...

There is a quite a lot of effort involved but I find action sequences some of the quickest to write and the most fun.

Iain Banks 122 quotes

The History Of The Universe I...

The History Of The Universe In Three Words CHAPTER ONE Bang! CHAPTER TWO sssss CHAPTER THREE crunch. THE END

Iain Banks 122 quotes

My gratitude extends beyond t...

My gratitude extends beyond the limits of my capacity to express it.

Iain Banks 122 quotes

The point is, there is no fea...

The point is, there is no feasible excuse for what are, for what we have made of ourselves. We have chosen to put profits before people, money before morality, dividends before decency, fanaticism before fairness, and our own trivial comforts before the unspeakable agonies of others

Iain Banks 122 quotes

"I think I know the real reas...

"I think I know the real reason." "Which is?" "Alcohol in the dust clouds. Goddamn stuff is everywhere. Any lousy species ever invents the telescope and the spectroscope and starts looking in between the stars, what do they find?" He knocked the glass on the table. "Loads of stuff, but much of it alcohol." He drank from the glass. "Humanoids are the galaxy's way of trying to get rid of all that alcohol."

Iain Banks 122 quotes

Technology determines the pos...

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 122 quotes

Even galaxy-spanning anarchis...

Even galaxy-spanning anarchist utopias of stupefying full-spectrum civilisational power have turf wars within their unacknowledged militaries.

Iain Banks 122 quotes

An Outside Context Problem wa...

An Outside Context Problem was the sort of thing most civilisations encountered just once, and which they tended to encounter rather in the same way a sentence encountered a full stop.

Iain Banks 122 quotes

The trouble with writing fict...

The trouble with writing fiction is that it has to make sense, whereas real life doesn't.

Iain Banks 122 quotes

Reason shapes the future, but...

Reason shapes the future, but superstition infects the present.

Iain Banks 122 quotes

My greatest enemies are Women...

My greatest enemies are Women and the Sea. These things I hate. Women because they are weak and stupid and live in the shadow of men and are nothing compared to them, and the Sea because it has always frustrated me, destroying what I have built, washing away what I have left, wiping clean the marks I have made.

Iain Banks 122 quotes

People can be teachers and id...

People can be teachers and idiots; they can be philosophers and idiots; they can be politicians and idiots... in fact I think they have to be... a genius can be an idiot. The world is largely run for and by idiots; it is no great handicap in life and in certain areas is actually a distinct advantage and even a prerequisite for advancement.

Iain Banks 122 quotes

One should never regret one's...

One should never regret one's excesses, only one's failures of nerve.

Iain Banks 122 quotes

It looks perverted and wastef...

It looks perverted and wasteful to us, but then one thing that empires are not about is the efficient use of resources and the spread of happiness; both are typically accomplished despite the economic short-circuiting - corruption and favoritism, mostly- endemic to the system.

Iain Banks 122 quotes

...and I confess that, like a...

...and I confess that, like a child, I cry. Ah, self-pity; I think we are at our most honest and sincere when we feel sorry for ourselves.

Iain Banks 122 quotes

Writing is like everything el...

Writing is like everything else: the more you do it the better you get. Don't try to perfect as you go along, just get to the end of the damn thing. Accept imperfections. Get it finished and then you can go back. If you try to polish every sentence there's a chance you'll never get past the first chapter.

Iain Banks 122 quotes

It was a truism that all civi...

It was a truism that all civilizations were basically neurotic until they made contact with everybody else and found their place within the ever-changing meta-civilisation of other beings, because, until then, during the stage when they honestly believed they might be entirely alone in existence, all solo societies were possessed of both an inflated sense of their own importance and a kind of existential terror at the sheer scale and apparent emptiness of the universe.

Iain Banks 122 quotes

Technology determines the pos...

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 122 quotes

Добрые, щедрые, великодушные: 6 советских актеров, которые были всеобщими любимчиками

23

Советских актёров часто ставят в пример как образец духовной силы, национальной гордости и внутренней красоты. Они стали символами эпохи, носителями культуры и нравственности. Но, как известно, за кул...

Десять кинозвезд, которые отлично поют

83

Актеры — люди творческие, но кто бы мог подумать, что некоторые из них скрывают прекрасный голос. В эпоху раннего Голливуда актеров с музыкальными способностями было немало — это считалось скорее норм...

Мэрилин Монро, Ким Кардашьян и другие

115

Неузнаваемая Ким Кардашьян в объективе фотографа Маркуса Клинко, 2009 год. Памела Андерсон в самой первой съёмке для журнала «Playboy», 1990. На фото голливудская актриса Dorothy Lamour и шимпанзе Джи...

Что стало с детьми-звездами: Рэдклифф и компания спустя годы

219

Расскажем, как сложилась судьба актеров, которые начинали сниматься еще в детстве.
Остаться на вершине в Голливуде удаётся не каждому, особенно если путь начался в детстве. Одни актёры теряются из-за...

Жизнь за границей: как изменились судьбы 7 уехавших телеведущих

541

Два года назад отечественное телевидение столкнулось с беспрецедентной кадровой тектоникой — целая группа ярких и узнаваемых ведущих стремительно исчезла с экранов федеральных каналов. Эти лица долгие...

Кира Найтли, Деми Мур и другие

165

Кира Найтли на страницах журнала к выходу фильма «Пиджак», 2005. Следы динозавра, раскопанные в русле реки Палакси. Техас. США. 1952г. Самая большая женщина рядом с самым маленьким мужчиной, 1922 год....