They come to us, these restless dead, Shrouds woven from the words of men, With trumpets sounding overhead (The walls of hope have grown so thin And all our vaunted innocence Has withered in this endless frost) That promise little recompense For all we risk, for all we've lost.

Time never runs backward when I need it to. Not for me, and not for anyone else.

Crazy gets all the knives.

Don't think she can breathe over there, chief." drawled Shaun. "Pretty sure she hasn't kicked the oxygen habit yet.

If anything, global response to the Rising only confirmed something that many Australians had quietly believed for quite some time: If forced to live in Australia for a year, most of the world's population would simply curl up in a fetal ball and die of terror.

There is nothing so patient, in this world or any other, as a virus searching for a host.

I'm not body-shy -- it's hard to grow up in the Summerlands, where clothes are solidly optional, and stay body-shy -- but that doesn't mean I enjoy nudity. Naked people are, by definition, unarmed.​