“How depressing, the Sleeper Service thought. That it should all come down to this; the person with the biggest stick prevails.”
Source: Culture series, Excession (1996), Chapter 11 “Regarding Gravious” section X (p. 372).
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Iain Banks 139
Scottish writer 1954–2013Related quotes

Letter to George Washington (31 October 1776)

“Majesty, there you see a how a person comes down in the world.”
When he was sworn in as State Secretary, he told Queen Juliana, for whom he had served as aide-de-camp.
P.J.S. (Piet) de Jong http://www.parlement.com/9291000/biof/00652 (Parlement & Politiek)

Letter to (Sept. 18, 1861) in Life of Henry Fawcett (1885) pp. 100-101 https://books.google.com/books?id=RjI7AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA100, and in More Letters of Charles Darwin: a Record of his Work in a Series of hitherto Unpublished Letters (1903) Vol. 1, p. 195 https://books.google.com/books?id=j0QeAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA195, ed., Sir Francis Darwin, Albert Charles Seward.
Other letters, notebooks, journal articles, recollected statements
Context: About thirty years ago there was much talk that geologists ought only to observe and not theorise; and I well remember some one saying that at this rate a man might as well go into a gravel-pit and count the pebbles and describe the colours. How odd it is that anyone should not see that all observation must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service!
Interview from 1998 https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0823155/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm.

“It all comes down to the last person you think of at night, that's where the heart is.”
Original: Tutto si riduce all'ultima persona a cui pensi la notte, è lì che si trova il cuore.
Source: In Una sorcia bianca – nella raccolta Storie di ordinaria follia

“This civil service law is the biggest fraud of the age. It is the curse of the nation. p. 11”
Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, Chapter 3, The Curse of Civil Service Reform

About Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Interview with IndieWire Gene Wilder Opens Up About Making of ‘Willy Wonka’ and ‘Young Frankenstein’ http://www.indiewire.com/2016/07/gene-wilder-willy-wonka-young-frankenstein-interview-watch-1201702561/