There are lots of authors who I really enjoy who get me happily from one end of a book to the other, with all kinds of interesting plots, characters and relationships, but who never write a really memorable sentence that makes me sit back and think. Penelope Lively is not one of those authors. Her plots are great (usually) small scale dramas, the characters fabulous and the relationships very interesting, but on every page there are a handful of sentences you want to cut out and keep forever. Wonderful stuff!