You’d best ask the lady boffin, sir,” Newkirk said. “Midshipmen aren’t allowed to have opinions.

I used to be a pre-industrial writer: thousands of words in a spurt and then a few days off. But as I get older, I've switched to a mode best described as 'slow and steady wins the race.' Basically, I write during the same four hours every day, after breakfast and the all-important coffee, generally in the same room and wearing the same pajamas.

People only worry about the uncanny for about a week; that's the end of their attention span. After that, suspicions turn into shtick.

I spilled more times than a glass of milk on a roller coaster.

You're splitting?" "No sh*it, Sherlock.

Ah. So he's forgotten the most important rule of warfare. Which is... That nothing ever goes to plan.

She looked at David closely, and the feeling was still there. She could see that his forehead was too high, that a small scar cut a white stroke through his eyebrow. And his smile was pretty crooked, really. But it was as if something had changed inside Tally's head, something that had turned his face pretty to her.