“... the great novels of the world were about three things - death, money and sex. Occasionally a whale.” — Kate Atkinson Copy Share Image
Not being published would be great. When I say that to other writers they look at me as if I'm totally insane. — Kate Atkinson Copy Share Image
Certainly I had a really terrible time with 'Emotionally Weird.' When I finished it, I thought, 'I can't write any more.' — Kate Atkinson Copy Share Image
The great thing about writing compared to life is getting to tie things up. — Kate Atkinson Copy Share Image
When I'm writing, my neural pathways get blocked. I can't read. I can barely hold a conversation without forgetting words and names.… — Kate Atkinson Copy Share Image
I don't have goals when writing books, apart from getting to the end. I have rather vague ideas about how I want… — Kate Atkinson Copy Share Image
A novel and its writer are inseparable: you are your books. A play's not like that at all. 'Abandonment's not mine -… — 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… — Kate Atkinson Copy Share Image
I need to be very isolated to write, and unfortunately isolation is often quite difficult to find. My ideal writing environment would… — Kate Atkinson 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 Copy Share Image
She should have done science, not spent all her time with her head in novels. Novels gave you a completely false idea… — Kate Atkinson Copy Share Image
Like many writers, I started by writing short stories. I needed to learn how to write and stories are the most practical… — Kate Atkinson Copy Share Image
I'm trying to take more nothing time - and that means sacrificing doing. It's partly to do with age, partly to do… — Kate Atkinson Copy Share Image
I can't imagine what it would be like to write in a relaxed state. I'm going to be writing some stories for… — Kate Atkinson Copy Share Image
The legacy of the fairy story in my brain is that everything will work out. In fiction it would be very hard… — 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 usually start writing a novel that I then abandon. When I say abandon, I don't think any writer ever abandons anything… — Kate Atkinson Copy Share Image
I had a novel in the back of my mind when I won an Ian St James story competition in 1993. At… — Kate Atkinson Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
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 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… — 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
