from The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield

In the hush that followed, Miss Winter seemed to draw all of her external self into her core; under my very eyes she managed to absent herself from herself, and I began to understand how it was that earlier I had failed to see her. I watched the shell of her, marveled at the impossibility of knowing what was going on beneath the surface.

The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield

All morning I struggled with the sensation of stray wisps of one world seeping through the cracks of another. Do you know the feeling when you start reading a new book before the membrane of the last one has had time to close behind you? You leave the previous book with ideas and themes -- characters even -- caught in the fibers of your clothes, and when you open the new book, they are still with you.

from The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield

There is something about words. In expert hands, manipulated deftly, they take you prisoner.