It seems to me after a fellow has been mutinied against three or four times, there is something to it besides bad luck.

I am very tired of this Government, which I have never seen, and which is always insisting that I must do disagreeable things, and does no good to anybody.

Trying to out-guess Bonaparte; the thought makes my blood run cold.

What could make the Napoleonic Wars more exciting? Dragons.

Temeraire said, ‘It is very nice how many books there are, indeed. And on so many subjects!

I do not think you are in any danger of starving,” Maximus said. “The surgeon said only two weeks ago that you are too fat.” “The devil!” Berkley said indignantly, sitting up; and Maximus snorted in amusement at having provoked him.

Something about that whole process of building the structure of that game turned into a real kind of lightbulb moment for me as a writer.

I’m an engineer and a writer. And I find that those two things are not uncomplementary.

The Magicians brilliantly explores the hidden underbelly of fantasy and easy magic, taking what’s simple on the surface and turning it over to show us the complicated writhing mess beneath. It’s like seeing the worlds of Narnia and Harry Potter through a 3-D magnifying glass.

As a novelist you have just unlimited budget, total creative control. You really get to have your cake – all the cake – and then you can have a second cake if you wanted to.

Enough of that, you damned conspirators, you will have us hanged a great deal sooner than we will.

Justice is expensive. That is why there is so little of it, and it is reserved for those few with enough money and influence to afford it.

Next you will cry about taxation without representation, and throw a basket of tea into the harbor. You are indeed a very Jacobin at heart, and I think I must give up trying to cure you of it; I can but wash my hands and deny responsibility