“ [T]here can be a form of vanity in grief that is indulged rather than suffered. ”
I just took [my cancer diagnosis] as bad luck, basically. It did strike me almost immediately, my atheist sort of thing kicked in and I thought ha, if I was a God-botherer, I'd be thinking, why me God? What have I done to deserve this? and I thought at least I'm free of that, at least I can simply treat it as bad luck and get on with it.
~ Iain M. Banks
The trouble with writing fiction is that it has to make sense, whereas real life doesn't.
What, anyway, was he to say? That intelligence could surpass and excel the blind force of evolution, with its emphasis on mutation, struggle and death? That conscious cooperation was more efficient than feral competition?
A temple was worth a dozen barracks; a militia man carrying a gun could control a small unarmed crowd only for as long as he was present; however, a single priest could put a policeman inside the head of every one of their flock, for ever.
