She had never been without a book for as long as she could remember. An only child never is. - Kate Atkinson

I'm always so glad,' Sylvie murmured, 'that I don't have to take a turn at being other people.'
'You're very good at being yourself,' Ursula said, aware that it didn't necessarily sound like a compliment.
'Well, I've had years of practice.

The plot thickens,” he said, and wished he hadn’t said that because it sounded like something from a bad detective novel. “I think we have a suspect.” That didn’t sound much better. “My house has just exploded, by the way.” At least that was novel.

Perhaps we are on an insula ex machina, an artificial place not in the real world at all — a backdrop for the stories we must tell.