“And I can't cry, I don't even want to cry. My tears would never do justice to this loss.” — Kate Atkinson Copy Share Image
“I know,” Ursula said, “it’s like the Emperor’s new clothes.” — Kate Atkinson Fashion Copy Share Image
(although anyone with half a brain must surely be mired in existential gloom all the time) — Kate Atkinson Brain Copy Share Image
“trying to restore some kind of natural balance of humors in the world.” — Kate Atkinson Comedy Copy Share Image
Most people muddled through events and only in retrospect realized their significance. — Kate Atkinson Events Copy Share Image
The beginning is the word and the end is silence. And in between are all the stories. — Kate Atkinson Beginning Copy Share Image
“...how strange it was that people just kept on going, even when their world no longer existed.” — Kate Atkinson Copy Share Image
“Sacrifice,’ ” he remembered Sylvie saying, “is a word that makes people feel noble about slaughter.” “These” — Kate Atkinson Sacrifice Copy Share Image
He was born a politician. No, Ursula thought, he was born a baby, like everyone else. And this is what he has… — Kate Atkinson Baby Copy Share Image
'Feminism' is such an incredibly awkward word for us these days, isn't it? Not to be feminist would be bizarre, wouldn't it? — Kate Atkinson Copy Share Image
“She supposed she was a little cog in the big wheel of Empire. “Nothing wrong with being a cog,” Maurice said, himself… — Kate Atkinson Cogs Copy Share Image
“common language was a wonderful idea, but utterly utopian. All good ideas were, she said sadly.” — Kate Atkinson Common language Copy Share Image
“she could see Sylvie and her friends on the lawn below, their dresses fluttering like moths in the encroaching dusk.” — Kate Atkinson Copy Share Image
Without siblings you get quite a skewed vision of yourself and of the world. I always felt I didn't understand how it… — Kate Atkinson Copy Share Image
“Don't you wonder sometimes,' Ursula said. 'If just one small thing had been changed, in the past, I mean. If Hitler had… — Kate Atkinson Copy Share Image
Life is a very orderly thing, but in fiction there is a huge liberation and freedom. I can do what I like.… — Kate Atkinson Copy Share Image
I don't want to spoil the magic, but it's a very curious thing that honestly baffles me. It's the nearest we'll ever… — Kate Atkinson Copy Share Image
“He was one of those people who stared at you with a meaningful smile on their face, as if he was somehow… — Kate Atkinson Copy Share Image
“I suppose a better sister would have set about weaving him a shirt from nettles and throwing it over his furred-over body… — Kate Atkinson Copy Share Image
But I, you know, if I could choose a period to go back to, I think I would like to live through… — Kate Atkinson Copy Share Image
“Nor, says Nora, do we want commonplace tales of hausfrau Angst, of the woman heroically making over her life with a handsome… — Kate Atkinson Children Copy Share Image
Fairy tales opened up a door into my imagination - they don't conform to the reality that's around you as a child.… — Kate Atkinson Children Copy Share Image
Love was the hardest thing. Don't let anyone ever tell you different. — Kate Atkinson Copy Share Image
“you walk into a room and your life ends but you keep on living.” — Kate Atkinson Life Copy Share Image
“Fine,’ she said, using the universal Scottish word for every state of being from ‘I’m dying in anguish’ to ‘I’m experiencing euphoric… — Kate Atkinson Death Copy Share Image
“Sylvie was surprised by the rabid patriotism of the women on the platform, surely war should make pacifists of all women?” — Kate Atkinson War Copy Share Image
Alternate history fascinates me, as it fascinates all novelists, because 'What if?' is the big thing. — Kate Atkinson Copy Share Image
I did feel when my mother died if anyone was going to haunt me it would be her. And she hasn't, so… — Kate Atkinson Copy Share Image
“All that is necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good women to do nothing.… — Kate Atkinson Evil Copy Share Image
Sylvie’s knowledge, like Izzie's, was random yet far-ranging, ‘The sign that one has acquired one’s learning from reading novels rather than an… — Kate Atkinson Books Copy Share Image
“One could lose everything in the blink of an eye, the slip of a foot. “One must avoid dark thoughts at all… — Kate Atkinson Copy Share Image
Whatever happens to you, embrace it, the good and the bad equally. Death is just one more thing to be embraced. — Kate Atkinson Death Copy Share Image
“…how overwhelming the feelings of love and terror, the desperate desire to protect. How much stronger would those feelings be if it… — Kate Atkinson Love Copy Share Image
“I'm a shadow of my former self," she announces. Vinny was a shadow to begin with, now she's a shadow of a… — Kate Atkinson Identity Copy Share Image
My work is not my life. I started writing quite late, I didn't have that 'writing is everything, my art is all.'… — Kate Atkinson Copy Share Image
