The Uncommon Reader

one finishes what’s on one’s plate.

Her job was to take an interest, not to be interested herse

Books are not about passing the time. They’re about other lives. Other worlds. Far from wanting time to pass, Sir Kevin, one just wishes one had more of it.

In fact she knew perfectly well (Norman again), but to her everybody’s name was immaterial, as indeed was everything else, their clothes, their voice, their class. She was a genuine democrat, perhaps the only one in the country.