Kate Atkinson

The past is what you take with you.

— Kate Atkinson

“Needs must, and so on.”

— Kate Atkinson

“History is all about 'what ifs”

— Kate Atkinson

“The mind is a fathomless mystery.”

— Kate Atkinson

If they would all sleep all the time she wouldn't mind being their mother.

— Kate Atkinson

“She was real and she was dead. And she was out there somewhere.”

— Kate Atkinson

“Marriage is based on a more enduring kind of love.”

— Kate Atkinson

“And I can't cry, I don't even want to cry. My tears would never do justice to this loss.”

— Kate Atkinson

“A woman should be a comfort and a relief, a restful pillow for the weary head.”

— Kate Atkinson

“Of course, I don’t believe in God,’ Dr Kellet said. ‘But I believe in heaven. One has to,”

— Kate Atkinson

“First things were good, last things not so much so.”

— Kate Atkinson

“..could smell the peppery-sweet perfume of pinks”

— Kate Atkinson

You must never believe everything they say about a person. Generally speaking, most of it will be lies, half-truths at best.

— Kate Atkinson

No point in thinking, you just have to get on with life. We only have one after all, we should try and…

— Kate Atkinson

“It was funny because she thought of herself as a good team player, although sometimes she suspected that no one else on…

— Kate Atkinson

“This Jackson bloke was the ruddy Scarlet Pimpernel, here, there and everywhere, always one step ahead of Barry. And everywhere he went,…

— Kate Atkinson

“Because life is an adventure, of course.” “I would say it was more of an endurance race,” Sylvie said. “Or an obstacle…

— Kate Atkinson

“There were doorways between this world and the next, she said, but only certain people could pass through them.”

— Kate Atkinson

“They have no sense of humour whatsoever – even Bunty has a sense of humour compared with our hosts. They have united…

— Kate Atkinson

“Get down,' Bunty says grimly. 'Mummy's thinking.' (Although what Mummy's actually doing is wondering what it would be like if her entire…

— Kate Atkinson

Patricia embraces me on the station platform. 'The past is what you leave behind in life, Ruby,' she says with the smile…

— Kate Atkinson

“You could guarantee a decent cup of coffee in Betty's, but it went beyond the decent coffee and the respectable girls (and…

— Kate Atkinson

I was an only child and grew up in York where my parents ran a surgical supplies shop. When I say I…

— Kate Atkinson

What did you do when the worst thing that could happen to you had already happened - how did you live life…

— Kate Atkinson

“Sometimes it takes just one good man, Ursula said to him during the war. Neither of them could think of an example…

— Kate Atkinson

When I started 'Case Histories,' the characters were all going to Antarctica on a cruise. The first part was called 'Embarkation.' It…

— Kate Atkinson

I think about death a lot, I really do, because I can't believe I won't exist. It's the ego isn't it? I…

— Kate Atkinson

“I'm always so glad,' Sylvie murmured, 'that I don't have to take a turn at being other people.' 'You're very good at…

— Kate Atkinson

“The triumph of the human spirit,” the new nursing sister said, new enough to talk about “positive outcomes” and “enhancement programmes”—emollient management-speak,…

— Kate Atkinson

“Amelia envisaged that between York and the royal-infested Scottish Highlands there was a grimy wasteland of derelict cranes and abandoned mills and…

— Kate Atkinson

“It was the kind of summer evening that made Ursula want to be alone. 'Oh,' Izzie said, 'You're at an age when…

— Kate Atkinson

“He had taken a few days' leave from his army training and they had taken refuge in the Charing Cross Hotel while…

— Kate Atkinson

“A 'career woman,'" Sylvie said, as if the two words had no place in the same sentence. "A spinster," she added, contemplating…

— Kate Atkinson

“She fed him scraps from her ragbag because words were all that were left now. Perhaps he could use them to pay…

— Kate Atkinson

“Fox Corner - that's what we should call the house. No one else has a house with that name and shouldn't that…

— Kate Atkinson

“She had had affairs over the years ... but she had never been pregnant, never been a mother or a wife and…

— Kate Atkinson

“A coincidence is just an explanation waiting to happen”

— Kate Atkinson

“Just because something bad had happened to her doesn't mean it won't happen again.”

— Kate Atkinson

She doesn't believe in dogs," Bridget said. "Dogs are hardly an article of faith," Sylvie said.

— Kate Atkinson

Sometimes it was harder to change the past than it was the future.

— Kate Atkinson