I love you," he whispered. "I hope you don't mind.

I enjoyed the army reserve, and I learned a lot from it, but I also... it helped me work out that I didn't want to live in that kind of closed environment.

I think there is a kind of laconic Australian leg-pulling sense of humor that is certainly in some of my stories, or is an element in some of my books, and that's probably a direct result of where I've grown up. But other than that I don't draw particularly on the Australian landscape or the Australian biology and so on. So I don't think there's anything you could point to and say is particularly Australian.

If only Sam could have stayed just like the Dog, she thought. A comforting friend without the complication of romantic interest.There had to be something she could do to completely discourage him, short of throwing up, or making herself totally unattractive. "I'm thirty-five," she said at last.

Nick shook his head and found to his surprise that he did have tears left after all. He wasn't surprised by a talking cat. The world was crumbling around him and anything could happen.

Fear and realisation of ignorance, strong medicines against stupid pride.

While princes do rule the empire, they have to work within certain boundaries, and they're also always in a contest with each other to become the next emperor. And this contest includes actually killing each other, doing anything they can get away with to each other.