This really rings true with me. Not every writer is an expert with words — they might be a good storyteller, or deft in some other way — but occasionally you find someone who uses words so well, who crafts such lovely sentences that you want to stop and read them aloud to other people.

“There is something about words. In expert hands, manipulated deftly, they take you prisoner. Wind themselves around your limbs like spider silk, and when you are so enthralled you cannot move, they pierce your skin, enter your blood, numb your thoughts. Inside you they work their magic.”

– Diane Setterfield, author of The Thirteenth Tale