What is any achievement, however great it was, once time itself is dead? - Iain Banks

But even if all the other stuff seems a bit esoteric, just think of all those other avatars at all those other gatherings, concerts, dances, ceremonies, parties and meals; think of all that talk, all those ideas, all that sparkle and wit!"
"Think of all that bullshit, the nonsense and non-sequiturs, the self-aggrandisement and self-deception, the boring stupid nonsense, the pathetic attempts to impress or ingratiate, the slow-wittedness, the incomprehension and the incomprehensible, the gland-addled meanderings and general suffocating dullness.

We are largely the sum of all we’ve done, and to dispose of that knowledge would be to stop being one’s self.

“I’m from out of town,” he said breezily. This was true. He’d never been within a hundred light-years of the place.