Look to Windward (Culture, #7)

by Iain M. Banks

We always want more, he thought, we always take our past successes for granted and assume they but point the way to future triumphs. But the universe does not have our own best interests at heart, and to assume for a moment that it does, ever did or ever might is to make the most calamitous and hubristic of mistakes.

“Is your own existence so replete with equanimity you find no outlet for worry except on behalf of others?”.

I need never wonder what it is like to kill, Ziller, because I have done it, and it is a wasteful, graceless, worthless and hateful thing to have to do.