Kate Atkinson Quotes

Quotes about:

Books Mothers Past Writing

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

Kate Atkinson

Silence, Stories, Ends

Kate Atkinson (2013). “Human Croquet: A Novel”, p.20, Macmillan

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The past is what you take with you.

Kate Atkinson

Past

Kate Atkinson (2013). “Behind the Scenes at the Museum: A Novel”, p.331, Macmillan

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

Kate Atkinson

Rivers, Water, Steps

Kate Atkinson (2013). “Life After Life”, p.485, Random House

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

Kate Atkinson

Mother, Sleep, Mind

Kate Atkinson (2010). “Case Histories: (Jackson Brodie)”, p.34, Random House

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

Kate Atkinson

World, Belief, Ends

Kate Atkinson (2013). “Behind the Scenes at the Museum: A Novel”, p.379, St. Martin's Press

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Why do cats sleep so much? Perhaps they've been trusted with some major cosmic task, an essential law of physics - such as: if there are less than five million cats sleeping at any one time the world will stop spinning.

Kate Atkinson

Sleep, Cat, Thinking

"Human Croquet: A Novel".

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

Kate Atkinson

Life, People, Damnation

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Patricia embraces me on the station platform. 'The past is what you leave behind in life, Ruby,' she says with the smile of a reincarnated lama. 'Nonsense, Patricia,' I tell her as I climb on board my train. 'The past's what you take with you.

Kate Atkinson

Past, Boards, Rubies

Kate Atkinson (2013). “Behind the Scenes at the Museum: A Novel”, p.331, Macmillan

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

Kate Atkinson

Law, Abiding, Path

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

Kate Atkinson

Men, Purpose, Earth

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

Kate Atkinson

Becoming

Kate Atkinson (2013). “Life After Life”, p.557, Random House

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

Kate Atkinson

Embrace, Whatever Happens, Happens

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

Kate Atkinson

Loneliness, Solitude, Conundrums

Kate Atkinson (2013). “Life After Life”, p.251, Random House

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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

Waiting, Realizing, Feels

Kate Atkinson (2013). “Life After Life”, p.490, Random House

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She should have done science, not spent all her time with her head in novels. Novels gave you a completely false idea about life, they told lies and they implied there were endings when in reality there were no endings, everything just went on and on and on.

Kate Atkinson

Lying, Reality, Should Have

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

Kate Atkinson

Past, Sometimes, Harder

Kate Atkinson (2013). “Life After Life”, p.577, Random House

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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, but you are not addressing other people as 'I' - you are inhabiting that 'I.'

Kate Atkinson

Writing, People, Different

"Emotionally weird? Moi?". Interview with Kim Bunce, www.theguardian.com. March 12, 2000.

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When I'm writing, my neural pathways get blocked. I can't read. I can barely hold a conversation without forgetting words and names. I wish I could wear the same clothes and eat the same food each day.

Kate Atkinson

Writing, Names, Clothes

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

Kate Atkinson

Years, Literature, Four

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

Kate Atkinson

Lying, Believe, Half

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

Kate Atkinson

People, Events, Retrospect

Kate Atkinson (2013). “Life After Life”, p.412, Random House

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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 feel that I should retreat into a better form of Zen Buddhism than this kind of ego-dominated thing. But I don't know, I mean, I want to come back as a tree but I suspect that it's just not going to happen, is it?

Kate Atkinson

Believe, Mean, Buddhism

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

Kate Atkinson

What If, Chance, Wonderful

Kate Atkinson (2013). “Life After Life”, p.11, Random House

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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.

Kate Atkinson

World, My Sister, Ends

Kate Atkinson (2013). “Behind the Scenes at the Museum: A Novel”, p.295, Macmillan

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

Kate Atkinson

Writing, Would Be, Wonderful

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Born: 1951
Occupation: Writer
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