I turned the pages so fast. And I suppose I was, in my mindless way, looking for a something, version of myself, a heroine I could slip inside as one might a pair of favourite shoes.

What reader wants to be told what attitude to strike?

Writing a novel resembles a journey with only the sketchiest of maps.

At that moment, the urge to be writing was stronger than any notion she had of what she might write.

It is quite impossible these days to assume anything about people's educational level from the way they talk or dress or from their taste in music. Safest to treat everyone you meet as a distinguished intellectual.

Wasn't writing a kind of soaring, an achievable form of flight, of fancy, of the imagination?

The luxury of being half-asleep, exploring the fringes of psychosis in safety.