Look to Windward (Culture, #7)

by Iain M. Banks

The animal in him craved something that his higher brain knew was not going to happen. That was the point he was impaled upon, the front on which he suffered; that struggle of the lower brain’s almost chemical simplicities of yearning pitched against the withering realities revealed and comprehended by consciousness. Neither could give up, and neither could give way. The heat of their battle burned in his mind.

“They call themselves the Disposables,” he said. Ziller was silent for a moment. “Strange that people are happy to adopt epithets they would fight to the death to throw off had they been imposed.”

“Some travel forever in hope and are serially disappointed. Others, slightly less self-deceiving, come to accept that the process of traveling itself offers, if not fulfilment, then relief from the feeling that they should be feeling fulfilled”.