Write Quotes by Kate Atkinson

8 Write quotes by Kate Atkinson

Kate Atkinson’s eight nuanced reflections on writing showcase her deft handling of layered narratives. Though brief, the quotes provide a glimpse into the subtle craftsmanship that defines her novels.

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Life is a very orderly thing, but in fiction there is a huge liberation and freedom. I can do what I like.…

Kate Atkinson

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Like many writers, I started by writing short stories. I needed to learn how to write and stories are the most practical…

Kate Atkinson

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I think you have to learn for yourself how to write. I'm slightly mystified by creative writing courses - God love them…

Kate Atkinson

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

Kate Atkinson

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Because I've a track record of talking about books I never write, in Australia they think I'm about to write a book…

Kate Atkinson

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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

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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

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I need to be very isolated to write, and unfortunately isolation is often quite difficult to find. My ideal writing environment would…

Kate Atkinson

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“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

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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

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“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

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“When she was little they had lived in an old farmhouse too, in the middle of nothing of but landscape.”

Kate Atkinson

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“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

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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

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I feel as if I’m waiting for something dreadful to happen, and then I realize it already has.

Kate Atkinson

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“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

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The beginning is the word and the end is silence. And in between are all the stories.

Kate Atkinson

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

Kate Atkinson

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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

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“What did science ever do for the world, apart from make better ways of killing people?” Sylvie said.”

Kate Atkinson

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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

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“she could see Sylvie and her friends on the lawn below, their dresses fluttering like moths in the encroaching dusk.”

Kate Atkinson

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“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

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