Kate Atkinson Quotes

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

As I watch, the sky fills with clouds of snow feathers from every kind of bird there ever was and even some that only exist in the imagination, like the bluebirds that fly over the rainbow.

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

If people believed in eternal damnation they might not be seizing the day quite so much.

Men had no purpose on earth whereas women were gods walking unrecognized among them.

The past is what you take with you.

Ursula craved solitude but she hated loneliness, a conundrum that she couldn’t even begin to solve.

Ethics are not necessarily to do with being law-abiding. I am very interested in the moral path, doing the right thing.

In the end, it is my belief, words are the only things that can construct a world that makes sense.

It wasn't that [he] believed in religion, or a God, or an afterlife. He just knew it was impossible to feel this much love and for it to end.

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

I spent four years doing a doctorate in postmodern American literature. I can recognize it when I see it.

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

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

I have been to the world's end and back and now I know what I would put in my bottom drawer .I would put my sisters.

Most people muddled through events and only in retrospect realized their significance.

What if we had a chance to do it again and again, until we finally did get it right? Wouldn't that be wonderful?

The past is a cupboard full of light and all you have to do is find the key that opens the door.

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

Life wasn't about becoming, was it? It was about being.

They said love made you strong, but in Louise's opinion it made you weak. It corkscrewed into your heart and you couldn't get it out again, not without ripping your heart to pieces.

She was a terrible mother, there was no doubt about it, but she didn't even have the strength to feel guilty.

It was a long time ago now. And it was yesterday.

Oh, God. What was happening to her, she was turning into a normal person.

I am mad, I think. I am mad therefore I think. I am mad therefore I think I am.

Become such as you are, having learned what that is.

He was born a politician. No, Ursula thought, he was born a baby, like everyone else. And this is what he has chosen to become.

Probably not needing to be published would give me more time to think about a book.

I did feel when my mother died if anyone was going to haunt me it would be her. And she hasn't, so I think it is possibly the end.

Time was a thief, he stole your life away from you and the only way you could get it back was to outwit him and snatch it right back.

Perhaps we are on an insula ex machina, an artificial place not in the real world at all -- a backdrop for the stories we must tell.

Feminism is such an incredibly awkward word for us these days, isnt it? Not to be feminist would be bizarre, wouldnt it?

No point in thinking, you just have to get on with life. We only have one after all, we should try and do our best. We can never get it right, but we must try.

Jennifer had never liked the pain of remembering what had happened, but for Theo it was the pain that kept Laura alive in his memory. He was afraid that if it ever began to heal she would disappear.

Sometimes,' Sylvie said, 'one can mistake gratitude for love.

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

(although anyone with half a brain must surely be mired in existential gloom all the time)

Certainly I had a really terrible time with 'Emotionally Weird.' When I finished it, I thought, 'I can't write any more.

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 education.

Alternate history fascinates me, as it fascinates all novelists, because 'What if?' is the big thing.

If you don't have a unique voice, then you're not really a writer.

The great thing about writing compared to life is getting to tie things up.

It's been said that the men in my books have been absent, or weak, or creepy.

Not being published would be great. When I say that to other writers they look at me as if I'm totally insane.

I've always loved mysteries, the something there that you didn't know, and with 'Case Histories' I just decide to make that more up-front.

You can step in the same river but the water will always be new.

Love was the hardest thing. Don't let anyone ever tell you different.

Whatever happens to you, embrace it, the good and the bad equally. Death is just one more thing to be embraced.

...and no man gave you a fur coat without expecting to receive something inreturn. Except for one's husband, of course, who expected nothing beyond modest gratitude.

Get down, ' Bunty says grimly. 'Mummy's thinking.' (Although what Mummy's actually doing is wondering what it would be like if her entire family was wiped out and she could start again.)