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I think I know the real reason...

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

Look at these humans! How coul...

Look at these humans! How could such glacial slowness even be called life? An age could pass, virtual empires rise and fall in the time they took to open their mouths to utter some new inanity!

Iain Banks 122 quotes

There's an old Sysan saying th...

There's an old Sysan saying that the soup of life is salty enough without adding tears to it.

Iain Banks 122 quotes

Political correctness is what ...

Political correctness is what right-wing bigots call what everybody else calls being polite

Iain Banks 122 quotes

Even galaxy-spanning anarchist...

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

Iain Banks 122 quotes

Oh, they never lie. They disse...

Oh, they never lie. They dissemble, evade, prevaricate, confound, confuse, distract, obscure, subtly misrepresent and willfully misunderstand with what often appears to be a positively gleeful relish and are generally perfectly capable of contriving to give one an utterly unambiguous impression of their future course of action while in fact intending to do exactly the opposite, but they never lie. Perish the thought.

Iain Banks 122 quotes

After doing extensive research...

After doing extensive research, I can definitely tell you that single malt whiskies are good to drink.

Iain Banks 122 quotes

Writing is like everything els...

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

I think the future stopped loo...

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 122 quotes

I'm too drunk to recall much o...

I'm too drunk to recall much of what I've said. Which, come to think of it, is probably just as well, judging by the way people who are normally quite sensible dissolve into gibbering, rude, opinionated and bombastic idiots once the alcohol molecules in their bloom-stream outnumber the neutrons, or whatever. Luckily, one only notices this if one stays sober oneself, so the solution is as pleasant (at the time, at least) as it is obvious.

Iain Banks 122 quotes

Stories set in the Culture in ...

Stories set in the Culture in which Things Went Wrong tended to start with humans losing or forgetting or deliberately leaving behind their terminal. It was a conventional opening, the equivalent of straying off the path in the wild woods in one age, or a car breaking down at night on a lonely road in another.

Iain Banks 122 quotes

It was the day my grandmother ...

It was the day my grandmother exploded.

Iain Banks 122 quotes

I held my crotch, closed my ey...

I held my crotch, closed my eyes and repeated my secret catechism.

Iain Banks 122 quotes

People were always sorry. Sorr...

People were always sorry. Sorry they had done what they had done, sorry they were doing what they were doing, sorry they were going to do what they were going to do; but they still did whatever it is. The sorrow never stopped them; it just made them feel better. And so the sorrow never stopped.

Iain Banks 122 quotes

There has seldom if ever a sho...

There has seldom if ever a shortage of eager young males prepared to kill and die to preserve the security, comfort and prejudices of their elders, and what you call heroism is just an expression of this simple fact; there is never a scarcity of idiots.

Iain Banks 122 quotes

Empathize with stupidity and y...

Empathize with stupidity and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot

Iain Banks 122 quotes

A guilty system recognizes no ...

A guilty system recognizes no innocents.

Iain Banks 122 quotes

Perdition awaits at the end of...

Perdition awaits at the end of a road constructed entirely from good intentions, the devil emerges from the details and hell abides in the small print.

Iain Banks 122 quotes

One of the advantages of havin...

One of the advantages of having laws is the pleasure one may take in breaking them.

Iain Banks 122 quotes

Truth, I have learned, differs...

Truth, I have learned, differs for everybody. Just as no two people ever see a rainbow in exactly the same place - and yet both most certainly see it, while the person seemingly standing right underneath it does not see it at all - so truth is a question of where one stands, and the direction one is looking in at the time.

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

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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....