If you don't stop apologizing, you're going to convince me you've done something wrong.

A girl expecting rescue never learns to save herself. Even with the means, she will find her courage wanting.

So much in life came down to timing.

In retrospect, it seems like everything in my life led to me becoming a writer. I just didn't realise it at the time.

I probably coughed self-pityingly in response, little aware that I was about to cross a tremendous threshold beyond which there would be no return, that in my hands I held an object whose simple appearance belied its profound power. All true readers have a book, a moment, like the one I describe, and when Mum offered me that much-read library copy mine was upon me.

But everyone's an expert with the virtue of hindsight . . . .

Nell was not one for friends and had never hidden her distaste for most other humans, their neurotic compulsion for the acquisition of allies.