I used to love reading, but since I've started writing, it's harder for me to immerse, because I spend so much time looking at how the story is structured and trying to see what the author is doing behind the curtain.

It’s human nature to tear one another apart. Be glad you come from such a successful line of killers.

A desert's a stupid place to put a river.

When I read, I'm either reading to learn, or I'm reading to switch off.

Never beg for mercy. Accept that you have failed. Begging is for dogs and humans.

For pleasure, I'll read military sf, or Elmore Leonard capers, anything that's fast and fun. Otherwise, I mostly pick at books, without any clear focus.

Mahlia... understood Doctor Mahfouz and his blind rush into the village. He wasn't trying to change them. He wasn't trying to save anyone. He was just trying to not be part of the sickness. Mahlia had thought he was stupid for walking straight into death, but now, as she lay against the pillar, she saw it differently. She thought she'd been surviving. She thought that she'd been fighting for herself. But all she'd done was create more killing, and in the end it had all led to this moment, where they bargained with a demon ... not for their lives, but for their souls