My father was an autodidact. It wasn't a middle-class house. Shopkeepers are aspirant. He paid for me to go to private school.… — Kate Atkinson 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 Copy Share Image
“Love at first sight, she wrote giddily to Millie. But of course such feelings weren't 'true' love (that was what she would… — Kate Atkinson Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
“Pamela produced placid babies. "They don't tend to turn feral until they're two," she said.” — Kate Atkinson Copy Share Image
I was an only child and grew up in York where my parents ran a surgical supplies shop. When I say I… — Kate Atkinson Copy Share Image
“Olivia was her only beautiful child. Julia, with her dark curls and snub nose, was pretty but her character wasn't, Sylvia ---… — 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 Copy Share Image
“Sylvie's children really only came into focus for her when in isolation. Together, they were an unwieldy flock, singly they had character.” — Kate Atkinson Copy Share Image
“Sweet sixteen," Hugh said, kissing her affectionately. "Happy birthday, little bear. Your future's all ahead of you." Ursula still harbored the feeling that some… — Kate Atkinson Copy Share Image
When you chopped logs with the ax and they split open they smelled beautiful, like Christmas. But when you split someone's head open it… — Kate Atkinson Copy Share Image
“He had made a vow, a private promise to the world in the long dark watches of the night, that if he did survive… — Kate Atkinson Copy Share Image
“When she was little they had lived in an old farmhouse too, in the middle of nothing of but landscape.” — Kate Atkinson Copy Share Image
“Do you keep time in the same place that you save it? If so why is it always so difficult to find? It must… — Kate Atkinson Copy Share Image
I was on the verge of something numinous and profound and in one more second the universe was going to crack open and arcana… — Kate Atkinson Copy Share Image
I feel as if I’m waiting for something dreadful to happen, and then I realize it already has. — Kate Atkinson Copy Share Image
“If she had been in charge of designing the human race she would have gone about things differently. (A golden shaft of light through… — Kate Atkinson Copy Share Image
The beginning is the word and the end is silence. And in between are all the stories. — 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 get to… — Kate Atkinson Copy Share Image
“What did science ever do for the world, apart from make better ways of killing people?” Sylvie said.” — Kate Atkinson Copy Share Image
