Iain Banks Quotes

I believed or thought I was disoriented and the victim of a bizarre dream and I believe I paced in and out of the room and possibly into one of the other rooms. I may have re-examined her, finally believing that this was true.

In my most psychotic stages, I imagine myself chewing on sidewalks and bulging and swallowing sunlight and clouds.

Paranoia is just another word for ignorance.

Strange how paranoia can link up with reality now and then.

Perhaps I'm absolutely bonkers and don't know it. Perhaps I'm psychotically mental.

I'm delirious. Spots are crawling before my eyes." "Those are spiders.

Some people think this is paranoia, but it isn't. Paranoids only think everyone is out to get them. Wizards know it.

When a man mistakes his thoughts for persons and things, he is mad.

I was home alone watching George Bush speak on television. So it was just really the two of us. And as I listened to him, I realized, that one of us... was nuts! And for the first time ever, I went, 'Wow, it's not me!'

Nonsense, when earnest, is impressive, and sometimes takes you in. If you are in a hurry, you occasionally mistake it for sense.

Stupidity is active in every direction, and can dress up in all the clothes of truth. Truth, on the other hand, has for every occasion only one dress and one path, and is always at a disadvantage.

I suppose I really seemed mad, then; but it was only through the awfulness of having said nothing but the truth, and being thought to be deluded.

A paranoid is someone who has all the facts.

I've seen the truth, and it makes no sense.

Am I mad, to see what others do not see, or are they mad who are responsible for all that I am seeing?

Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and bamboozle requires intelligence, vigilance, dedication, and courage. But if we don't practice these tough habits of thought, we cannot hope to solve the truly serious problems that face us --- and we risk becoming a nation of suckers, up for grabs by the next charlatan who comes along.

I keep hearing in my head "you are the Messiah, you are the Messiah." I think there's something wrong with my headphones.

Paranoia is knowing all the facts.

Most of humanity, he said, have eyes that are so caked shut with the dust of deception they will never see the truth, no matter who tries to help them.

She suddenly began to jump up and down, screaming at the top of her lungs. "The arks are after me! The arks are after me! Help me, the arks are after me!" .... "The arks! You don't understand, I have the ring and the arks are after me!" .... (and so the police officer is puzzled long enough for Miriam and Seth to escape)

Nathan always believed his wife was trying to poison him but he didn't seem to mind. He said it made life kind of exciting.

All humanity could share a common insanity and be immersed in a common illusion while living in a common chaos. That can't be disproved, but we have no choice but to follow our senses.

The sun hides not the ocean, which is the dark side of this earth, and which is two thirds of this earth. So, therefore, that mortal man who hath more of joy than sorrow in him, that mortal man cannot be true-- not true, or undeveloped. With books the same. The truest of all men was the Man of Sorrows, and the truest of all books is Solomon’s, and Ecclesiastes is the fine hammered steel of woe.

We may listen to our inner self-and still not know which ocean we hear roaring.

Our job is not to ask that God respond to our notion of truth. Our job is to be true to Him, Hi-His word and His commandments, and we should assume humbly that we're confused and don't always know what we're doin' and we're staggerin' and stumblin' towards him and have some humility in that process.