Sorrow be damned, and all your plans. Fuck the faithful, fuck the committed, the dedicated, the true believers; fuck all the sure and certain people prepared to maim and kill whoever got in their way; fuck every cause that ended in murder and a child screaming." - Meaning and context.">
QuotesCosmos
Chapter 24 “Fall Into The Sea” (p. 484; ellipsis represents elision of a short paragraph of description)
“

Sorry? Of course he was sorry. 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 was. The sorrow never stopped them; it just made them feel better. And so the sorrow never stopped. Fate, I’m sick of it all...
Sorrow be damned, and all your plans. Fuck the faithful, fuck the committed, the dedicated, the true believers; fuck all the sure and certain people prepared to maim and kill whoever got in their way; fuck every cause that ended in murder and a child screaming.

— Iain Banks

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Sorry? Of course he was sorry. 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 was. The sorrow never stopped them; it just made them feel better. And so the sorrow never stopped. Fate, I’m sick of it all...
Sorrow be damned, and all your plans. Fuck the faithful, fuck the committed, the dedicated, the true believers; fuck all the sure and certain people prepared to maim and kill whoever got in their way; fuck every cause that ended in murder and a child screaming." in the context of "Chapter 24 “Fall Into The Sea” (p. 484; ellipsis represents elision of a short paragraph of description)" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Source: Wikiquote: "Iain Banks" (Quotes, Non-Culture Novels, Against a Dark Background (1993): All page numbers are from the trade paperback edition published by Orbit, , in 1995 All italics and ellipses as in the book, unless otherwise noted ) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app

Tags

#Iain Banks#sorry#fuck#what#stopped#sorrow#doing#going#never#done#allsorrow#committed
Iain Banks

About Iain Banks

Iain Menzies Banks (February 16, 1954 – June 9, 2013), officially Iain Banks, was a Scottish writer. As Iain M. Banks he wrote science fiction; as Iain Banks he wrote literary fiction.