“And coincidence convinces the credulous. Two things happen at the same time, or one after another, and we assume there must be a link; well, we sacrificed a virgin last year, and there was a good harvest. Of course the ceremony to raise the sun works—it comes up every morning, doesn’t it? I say my prayers each night and the world hasn’t ended yet…
Dung beetle thinking. Life is too complicated for there not to be continual coincidences, and we just have to come to terms with the fact that they merely happen and aren’t ordained, that some things occur for no real reason whatsoever, and that this is not a punishment and that is not a reward. Good grief; the most copper-bottomed, platinum-card proof of divine intervention, of some holy masterplan, would be if there were no coincidences at all! That really would look suspicious.”
“Piece” (p. 75)
Short fiction, The State of the Art (1991)
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Iain Banks 139
Scottish writer 1954–2013Related quotes

“Coincidence is just the word we use when we have not yet discovered the cause.”
Homecoming saga, The Call Of Earth (1992)
[Buchli (Ed.), Victor, Christopher, Tilley, The Material Culture Reader, 2002, Berg, 1-85973-559-2, Oxford]

As quoted in The Sunday Telegraph, London (1981), and The Annual Obituary 1983 (1984) edited by Elizabeth Devine and Marion Stoker Morgan, p. 143

Tessa Virtue, Interview for Golden Skate (17 September 2007)
Partnership with Tessa Virtue, Tessa Virtue about Moir

Tessa Virtue, Interview for Golden Skate (17 September 2007)
Partnership with Scott Moir, Tessa Virtue about Moir