The attraction of a life devoted to sensation, pleasure and self would probably wear thin one day, but there was still plenty of time for that yet.

He's wearing his official university sweatshirt again, which puzzles me a little. I mean I'd sort of understand it more if it said Yale or Harvard or something, because then it would be a fashion choice. But why advertise the fact that you're at a university to all the other people who are at the university with you?

I've only ever been recognised in the street once. In Sweden, strangely.

The future rose up ahead of her, a succession of empty days, each more daunting and unknowable than the one before her.

…and Emma felt another small portion of her soul fall away.

I know that for every reader who has lost the habit or can't find the time, there are people who've never enjoyed reading and question the value of literature, either as entertainment or education, or believe that a love of books, and of fiction in particular, is sentimental or frivolous.

She wondered if she was doomed to be one of those people who spend their lives trying things.