High in a turret of a great castle rising on a black crag above snowy plains, besieged and grand, crammed full of an empire's treasure, and he sitting by a log fire with a sad and lovely princess. . . . I used to dream about such things, he thought. I used to long for them, ache for them. They seemed the very stuff of life, its essence. So why does all this taste of ashes?

Iain M. Banks Use of Weapons
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The scene is set in a castle perched on a rugged cliff, a grand fortress filled with the riches of an empire. The protagonist finds himself beside a beautiful yet melancholic princess, creating an image of both romance and isolation. Despite the opulence surrounding him, he reflects on how these once coveted dreams now feel hollow and unfulfilling, leaving him with a sense of despair.

This internal conflict raises questions about...

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Use of Weapons
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Other quotes in Use of Weapons

All societies are like that; the damping hand of the old and the firebrand youth together.

Iain M. Banks Use of Weapons

Tactics cohered into strategy, strategy disintegrated into tactics, in the sliding scale of their dialectical moral algebra.

Iain M. Banks Use of Weapons

{He} just wants {...} forgiveness?Sma, given all the things Zakalwe's done, just since we've known him, they'd have to invent a personal deity for him alone, to even start him.Sma turned away to look at the blank screen again. She shook her head and said quietly, It doesn't work that way, Skaffen-Amtiskaw.Or any other way, the drone thought to itself, but didn't say anything.

Iain M. Banks Use of Weapons

The method was that taking and bending of materials and people to one purpose, the outlook that everything could be used in the fight; that nothing could be excluded, that everything was a weapon, and the ability to handle those weapons, to find them and choose which one to aim and fire; that talent, that ability, that use of weapons.

Iain M. Banks Use of Weapons

Solotol is a city of arches and bridges, where steps and pavements wind past tall buildings and lance out over steep rivers and gullies on slender suspension bridges and fragile stone arches. Roadways flow along the banks of water courses, looping and twisting over and under them; railways splay out in a tangle of lines and levels, swirling through a network of tunnels and caverns where underground reservoirs and roads converge, and from a speeding train passengers can look out to see galaxies of lights reflecting on stretches of dark water crossed by the slants of underground funiculars and the piers and ways of subterranean roads.

Iain M. Banks Use of Weapons

High in a turret of a great castle rising on a black crag above snowy plains, besieged and grand, crammed full of an empire's treasure, and he sitting by a log fire with a sad and lovely princess. . . . I used to dream about such things, he thought. I used to long for them, ache for them. They seemed the very stuff of life, its essence. So why does all this taste of ashes?

Iain M. Banks Use of Weapons
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All the things you can talk about in anyone's work are the things that are least important.

Edward Gorey Ascending Peculiarity:...
All the things you can talk about in anyone's work are the things that are least important.

Race of Cain, ascend to heaven, And cast God down upon the earth!

Charles Baudelaire The Flowers of Evil / The...
Race of Cain, ascend to heaven, And cast God down upon the earth!

"Philip Sharpe was a soldier in God's army," says the minister. "Now he marches with the angels."

Holly Black Red Glove
"Philip Sharpe was a soldier in God's army," says the minister. "Now he marches with the angels."

For me the curse is a crutch, but the con is everything.

Holly Black White Cat
For me the curse is a crutch, but the con is everything.

I don't have anything against God. Far from it. But I don't understand Him. And I don't trust a lot of the people that go around claiming that they're working in His best interests.

Jim Butcher Grave Peril
I don't have anything against God. Far from it. But I don't understand Him. And I don't trust a lot of the people that go around claiming that they're working in His best interests.

Now that you're an adult, you might still feel a pang of guilt when you decline a dinner invitation in favor of a good book. Or maybe you like to eat alone in restaurants and could do without the pitying looks from fellow diners. Or you're told that you're "in your head too much," a phrase that's often deployed against the quiet and cerebral. Of course, there's another word for such people: thinkers.

Susan Cain Quiet: The Power of...
Now that you're an adult, you might still feel a pang of guilt when you decline a dinner invitation in favor of a good book. Or maybe you like to eat alone in restaurants and could do without the pitying looks from fellow diners. Or you're told that you're "in your head too much," a phrase that's often deployed against the quiet and cerebral. Of course, there's another word for such people: thinkers.
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