Cross-indexing her charges against the records of her credit-provider and its client retailers, he produced a list of everything she’d purchased in the past week. Six-pack, blades, Tokkai carton opener. Did she own a Tokkai carton opener? But then he remembered Kathy’s advice, that this was the part of research most prone to produce serious transference, the point at which the researcher’s intimacy with the subject could lead to a loss of perspective. “It’s often easiest for us to identify at the retail level, Laney. We’re a shopping species. Find yourself buying a different brand of frozen peas because the subject does, watch out.”

From Idoru. I think of this passage often.