Like many writers, I started by writing short stories. I needed to learn how to write and stories are the most practical way to do this, and less soul-destroying than working your way through a lengthy novel and then discovering… — Kate Atkinson Copy Share Image
I think you have to learn for yourself how to write. I'm slightly mystified by creative writing courses - God love them - because I can't understand how you can explain a process that I find so baffling. — 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
Because I write fiction, I don't write autobiography, and to me they are very different things. The first-person narrative is a very intimate thing,… — Kate Atkinson 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
“misquote Edmund Burke rather than Milton. All that is necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good… — Kate Atkinson Copy Share Image
