Kate Atkinson

“History is all about 'what ifs”

— Kate Atkinson

“The mind is a fathomless mystery.”

— Kate Atkinson

“Needs must, and so on.”

— Kate Atkinson

The past is what you take with you.

— Kate Atkinson

“He was officially a lunatic, she decided. Strangely, that didn't make him less attractive.”

— Kate Atkinson

The great thing about writing compared to life is getting to tie things up.

— Kate Atkinson

“I wanted her for what she was, but when I got her I wanted her to change.”

— Kate Atkinson

“How many times would he disappoint you in a day if you were married to him, Ursula wondered?”

— Kate Atkinson

“The only way to stop the tears was to keep drinking the whisky.”

— Kate Atkinson

“Butter was plastered on to the roll with no regard for the hard labor of the cow”

— Kate Atkinson

“...but one cannot look backward, only forward. What has passed has passed forever.”

— Kate Atkinson

“of the debacle over Fox Corner when Sylvie died”

— Kate Atkinson

“Her true hope was that something would happen in the course of her time abroad that would mean she need never take…

— Kate Atkinson

“In the prosperous household of Sylvie's childhood, Cook was called 'Cook' but Mrs Glover preferred 'Mrs Glover'. It made her irreplaceable. Sylvie…

— Kate Atkinson

Ethics are not necessarily to do with being law-abiding. I am very interested in the moral path, doing the right thing.

— Kate Atkinson

The past is a cupboard full of light and all you have to do is find the key that opens the door.

— Kate Atkinson

She was a terrible mother, there was no doubt about it, but she didn't even have the strength to feel guilty.

— Kate Atkinson

“I don't actually live here," Reggie said. "Who does live here then?" "Ms. MacDonald, except that she doesn't because she's dead. Everyone's…

— Kate Atkinson

I have been to the world's end and back and now I know what I would put in my bottom drawer .I…

— Kate Atkinson

Certainly I had a really terrible time with 'Emotionally Weird.' When I finished it, I thought, 'I can't write any more.'

— Kate Atkinson

“Doing nothing was much more productive than people thought; Jackson often had his most profound insights when he appeared to be entirely…

— Kate Atkinson

It was failing part of my Ph.D. that led me into novel-writing. By then I was 29, had remarried and had a…

— Kate Atkinson

“Fiction had never been Jackson's thing. Facts seemed challenging enough without making stuff up. What he discovered was that the great novels…

— Kate Atkinson

“From here he could see the farmer's daughter in the yard, feeding the geese. Wasn't there a nursery rhyme in there somewhere?…

— Kate Atkinson

Because I write fiction, I don't write autobiography, and to me they are very different things. The first-person narrative is a very…

— Kate Atkinson

Everyone said, 'Well, you're very old for a first novel,' and I said, 'How do you write when you haven't lived? How…

— Kate Atkinson

“Afterwards—because it turned out that there was to be an afterwards for Teddy—he resolved that he would try always to be kind.…

— Kate Atkinson

I had a novel in the back of my mind when I won an Ian St James story competition in 1993. At…

— Kate Atkinson

“Stella was one of Mr Bullock’s ‘chorus girls’ and confessed (readily) to being a ‘striptease artiste’ but Mr Armitage the opera singer…

— Kate Atkinson

I can't help but think that it's an unfortunate custom to name children after people who come to sticky ends. Even if…

— Kate Atkinson

“Winter dark, five o'clock in the morning by the little gold carriage clock on the bedroom mantelpiece. The clock, an English one…

— Kate Atkinson

“She was tremendously fond of Ralph. Not hounded by love the way some women were. With Crighton she had been teased endlessly…

— Kate Atkinson

“Louise was an urbanite, she preferred the gut-thrilling sound of an emergency siren slicing through the night to the noise of country…

— Kate Atkinson

“The roof of the big top was dark blue, spangled with silver stars, and it reminded him of something but he couldn't…

— Kate Atkinson

“The mountain panorama was the backdrop to every photo taken here, the backdrop to everything. At first Ursula had thought it beautiful,…

— Kate Atkinson

Some people spend their whole lives looking for themselves, yet our self is the one thing we surely cannot lose (how like…

— Kate Atkinson

Oh, God. What was happening to her, she was turning into a normal person.

— Kate Atkinson

“Scars heal,” Sylvie said. “Even the worst ones.”

— Kate Atkinson

“Ursula found herself dwelling on Hugh's death, his absence more than his death.”

— Kate Atkinson

Hindsight's a wonderful thing. If we all had it there would be no history to write about.

— Kate Atkinson