Quotes from Kate Atkinson

I need to talk to you." "People always say that," Hartley said grimly, "but usually what they need is not to talk.

of the debacle over Fox Corner when Sylvie died

She wanted to be left alone in peace, to disappear into her own quiet world and meditate upon death. Death. Yes, she could form that blunt, obscene word too. But instead she was the one who was going to have to be kind and strong and say that everything was going to be all right (which it clearly was not) and that she had come to terms with it.

Discretion being the better part of valour

Have you? Forgiven them? Had he? Theoretically perhaps, but not in his heart, where truth resided.

Survival trumped memory.

He didn't make plans himself any more. There was now and it was followed by another now. If you were lucky.

Live your life, Louise," Patrick said, "don't endure it.

Best to avoid morbid thoughts, Ursula counselled, advice that would stand him in good stead for the next three years. For the rest of his life, in fact.

They had been too taken up with each other, grasshoppers enjoying the summer, rather than ants preparing for the winter.

The dead were legion and the gods had their own secret agenda.

You are an old soul," he said. "It can't be easy. But your life is still ahead of you. It must be lived.

He loved Viola as only a parent can love a child, but it was hard work.

Everyone remembered Lord Lucan's name, but hardly anyone remembered Sandra Rivett, the nanny he clubbed to death. The wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time. Like Gabrielle Mason and her children, also mostly forgotten by the collective memory. Who could name one of the Yorkshire Ripper's victims? Or the Wests'? The forgotten dead. Victims faded, murderers lived on in the memory, only the police kept the eternal flame alight, passing it on as the years went by.

Her grandfather was dying of old age, Bertie thought. Worn out. Not cancer or a heart attack or an accident or a catastrophe. Old age seemed like a hard way to go.

Why was it that the females of the species were always the ones left to tidy up? she wondered. I expect Jesus came out of the tomb, Juliet thought, and said to his mother, "Can you tidy it up a bit back there?

What an extraordinary few hours—from Holloway first thing, to being assaulted and robbed on Regent Street, not to mention being recruited to spy on the notorious Cokers by Frobisher the previous day. The Library could not compete.

At the twisted heart of every war were the innocents. "Collateral damage" they called it these days, but those civilians hadn't been collateral, they had been the targets. That was what war had become. It was no longer warrior killing warrior, it was people killing other people. Any people.

Death was the end. Sometimes it took a whole lifetime to understand that. He thought of Sunny, journeying restlessly in search of the thing he had left behind. Promise me you'll make the most of your life, he said to Bertie. I promise, Bertie said, already at twenty-four knowing it was unlikely she would be able to do so.

He did have a natural charm, the same way that Teddy did, it came from a kind of straightness in their character. Jimmy's charm was different, more dishonest perhaps.

Become such as you are, having learned what that is. She knew what that was now. She was Ursula Beresford Todd and she was a witness.

It was Daphne Wood who had taught him the value of getting in there with one swift, mean blow rather than prancing around with a duelist's finesse.

An only child herself, she was frequently disturbed by the complexity of sibling relationships among her own children.

Secrets had the power to kill a marriage