If a man is to lose his fortune, it is a good thing if he were poor before he acquired it, for poverty requires aptitude.

I think probably the scaredest I've ever been was in Somalia. I arrived there when the episode that became known as 'Black Hawk Down' was still taking place. The Americans were still pinned down under fire. And everybody else was basically going the other way, and I was the only one putting my hand up for a flight in.

While I love to read contemporary fiction, I'm not drawn to writing it. Perhaps it's because the former journalist in me is too inhibited by the press of reality; when I think about writing of my own time I always think about nonfiction narratives. Or perhaps it's just that I find the present too confounding.

I am not part of that earlier Australian generation who set off on a deliberate search for fame and fortune in distant lands. My generation was the first that didn't need to. By the 1980's when I left home, our culture had grown deep enough and wide enough to encompass all but the most rarefied of ambitions.

It is human nature to imagine, to put yourself in another's shoes. The past may be another country. But the only passport required is empathy.

We are not the only animal that mourns; apes do, and elephants, and dogs. Yet we are the only one that tortures.

I think that you can honour the sacrifices of a common soldier without glorifying war.