Peter James West

Rachel Henson stood facing him, immaculate in her uniform and ready for duty as always. She looked as though she had spent her whole life preparing for this very moment - she always did.

From the dark forest that bordered the soft ploughed fields, came a low cry that did not belong to any animal. It was accompanied by the sound of branches bending and snapping, and the splintering of wood as trees were crushed or toppled onto their sides.

If you were given the chance to be reborn after your death, buy you could only come back as a squirrel, would you complain?

Failure is something you experience on your way to success - unless you're a skydiver.

If I could do it all again, I would start three hundred years ago, and write twice as fast.

If I could split myself into five people, I would still be behind on my writing schedule. I see now why James Patterson cloned himself so many times.

You only get one life.Too bad you already made a mess of it.

Laugh and the world laughs with you.Fart and you're on your own.

Giving up drinking for life is easy.I've done it loads of times.

Sometimes the body gets out of bed an hour before the brain.

Drafting is like painting the Golden Gate Bridge.The closer you get to the end, the more you start to worry about the beginning.

I am the sum of my past experience.Some people have got a lot to answer for.

On the way home, I saw a fist fight between an adverb and a pair of parentheses.I kept on walking.

Of all the things I expected to find in my lunch, a live snake wasn't one of them.

Don't look up at the mountain. Keep your head down, and take the next step.

The Walker towered over him like a half-built skyscraper with a bad attitude. Its bulbous silver head was home to so many weapons that Nick couldn't even count them. He couldn't even name half of them.