I preferred characters who carried off their unreality with conviction.

From Slightly Foxed No. 49, Spring 2016. Old Devil in a Dog-Collar by Linda Leatherbarrow, page 87. Reviewing Lorna Sage's Bad Blood . On Lorna Sage, her father and her childhood reading.

He taught her to read before she was 4 and she would take down the books from the shelves in his study and puzzle over the big words while he worked on his sermons. Her name, which he chose for her, came from one of those books - Lorna Doone. Of her early reading she writes: "I didn't want to meet lifelike characters. I preferred characters who carried off their unreality with conviction."