Quote by Iain M. Banks

“He was starting to change his mind about the old warrior code stuff knights and princes used. Usually when they were drunk and in need of spilling their words, and trying to justify their core behavior. Behave honorably and wish for a good death. He'd always dismissed it as self-serving bullshit frankly. Most of the people he'd been told were his betters were quite vainly dishonorable. Greedy bastards wanted more the more they got. While those that weren't like that were better behaved partly because they could afford to be. Was it more honorable to starve than to steal? People would say yes. Though rarely those who actually experienced an empty belly or a child whimpering with its own hunger. Was it more honorable to starve than to steal when others had the means to feed you but chose not to? Unless, you paid with money you did not have. He thought not. If you chose to starve you became your own oppressor, keeping yourself in line, harming yourself for the temerity of being poor. When by rights that aught to be a constables job. Show any initiative or imagination, then you were called lazy, shifty, crafty, or incorrigible. So he dismissed talk of honor. It was just a way of making the rich and powerful feel better about themselves, and the powerless and poverty-stricken feel worse. But once you weren't living hand to mouth and had some ease, you had the pleasure of contemplating what life was really about and who you really were, and given that you had to die, it made sense to seek a good death. Even these Culture people, bafflingly, chose to die even when they didn't have to. With freedom from fear and wondering where your next meal was coming from or wondering how many mouths you'd have to feed next year, and whether you'd get sacked by your employer, or thrown into jail for some minor indiscretion. With freedom from that you had the choice of living a nice, calm, peaceful, ordinary life and die with your nightshirt on and impatient relatives making lots of noise around you. Or, you could end up doing something like this, however scared your body might feel, your brain could appreciate the experience... Given that you had to die, why want a bad one?”

Quote by Iain M. Banks