The Player Of Games: A Culture Novel

by Iain M. Banks

revenge, making up stories where appalling or just funny things happened to their enemies or their friends. Where nothing could be authenticated, blackmail became both pointless and impossible; in a society like the Culture, where next to nothing was forbidden, and both money and individual power had virtually ceased to exist, it was doubly irrelevant.

the message is that it’s brains that matter, kids; gonads are hardly worth making a distinction over.

You cannot choose not to have the politics you do; they are not some separate set of entities somehow detachable from the rest of your being; they are a function of your existence. I

Gurgeh laughed and shook his head. He thought the common people must be remarkably stupid if they believed all this nonsense.

relatable and something I often find myself thinking around election years.