The felicitous idea occurred to me a morning or two later when I woke, that the best step I could take towards making myself uncommon was to get out of Biddy everything she knew.
– Charles Dickens
Great Expectations, Chapter 10. An ambitious Pip wants to better himself so as to move up the social ladder. He believes that the best way to do this is to have his childhood friend and skilled teacher Biddy be his tutor and teach him what she knows. The ironic thing is that Biddy is just as “common” as he is.