373 Quotes by Kate Atkinson

Jessica was easier, her character already fixed at the age of eight. Loyal, resourceful, confident, annoying. Clever, too clever sometimes. Too clever for her own good, their father said but their mother said, That's impossible. Especially for a girl.

It's funny, isn't it," Miss Woolf whispered in Ursula's ear, "how much German music we listen to. Great beauty transcends all. Perhaps after the war it will heal all too.

A garden, as far as Teddy could see, was nature tamed and constrained by artifice.

... Angus had a "pretty normal childhood." Bertie had immediately mistrusted him. Nobody had a normal childhood.

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

Small boys were a mystery to Sylvie. The satisfaction they gained from throwing sticks or stones for hours on end, the obsessive collection of inanimate objects, the brutal destruction of the fragile world around them, all seemed at odds with the men they were supposed to become.

We cannot turn away,” Miss Woolf told her, “we must get on with our job and we must bear witness.” What did that mean, Ursula wondered. “It means,” Miss Woolf said, “that we must remember these people when we are safely in the future.”“And if we are killed?”“Then others must remember us.

Pamela produced placid babies. "They don't tend to turn feral until they're two," she said.

Spring forward, fall back," Eunice chants. "Daylight saving" -- what an amazing idea. (If only you could, but where would you keep it? With the time that's found? Or the time that's kept? A treasure chest, or a hole in the ground?)"You're late," Eunice says."Better than never," I reply irritably.