Deon Pretorius

“He knew all the answers. Everybody did. Everybody knew everything and everybody knew all the answers. It was just that the enemy seemed to know better ones.”
― Iain M. Banks, Surface Detail

“Experience as well as common sense indicated that the most reliable method of avoiding self-extinction was not to equip oneself with the means to accomplish it in the first place.”
― Iain M. Banks, Consider Phlebas

“A city's only ever three hot meals away from anarchy.”
― Alastair Reynolds, Terminal World

“One should never regret one's excesses, only one's failures of nerve.”
― Iain M. Banks, The Hydrogen Sonata