They had triumphed over death this night. Sylvie wondered when death would seek his revenge. - Kate Atkinson

If they would all sleep all the time she wouldn't mind being their mother.

Writing felt like something she knew, although she only knew it from the other side – reading – and it took her a while to realize that writing and reading were completely different activities – polar opposites, in fact. And just because she could do joined-up handwriting, she discovered, didn’t mean that she could write books. But she persevered, perhaps for the first time in her life.

Being flippant was harder work than being earnest