“ All the birds who were never born, all the songs that were never sung and so can only exist in the imagination.And this one is Teddy's. Kate Atkinson
“ And with a massive roar the fifth wall comes down and the house of fiction falls, taking Viola and Sunny and Bertie with it. They melt into thin air and disappear. Pouf! Kate Atkinson
“ Across the world millions of lives are altered by the absence of the dead, but three members of Teddy's last crew—Clifford the bomb-aimer, Fraser, the injured pilot, and Charlie, the tail-end Charlie—… Kate Atkinson
“ So much for progress. How quickly civilization could dissolve into its more ugly elements. Kate Atkinson
“ She fed him scraps from her ragbag because words were all that were left now. Perhaps he could use them to pay the ferryman. The air rippled and shimmered. Time narrowed to a pinpoint. It was about to… 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 betrayed, yet still staunch, people. Oh and moorland… Kate Atkinson
“ ...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. Kate Atkinson
“ This Henry lived in Edinburgh, making him inaccessible and giving her something to do on the weekends — 'Oh, just flying up to Scotland, Henry's taking me fishing,' which is the kind of thing she imag… Kate Atkinson
“ The clock had been Sylvie's, and her mother's before that. It had gone to Ursula on Sylvie's death and Ursula had left it to Teddy, and so it had zigzagged its way down the family tree......The clock… Kate Atkinson
“ He had been very keen on Esperanto, which had seemed an absurd eccentricity at the time but now Ursula thought it might be a good thing to have a universal language, as Latin had once been. Oh, yes, M… Kate Atkinson
“ She...wanted no one—apart from men in nineteenth-century novels, which put a whole new spin on the idea of 'unattainable. Kate Atkinson
“ I mean what else is there for a woman to do if she doesn't want to go from the parental to the marital home with nothing in between? 'An educated woman,'Millie amended. 'An educated woman,' Ursula agr… Kate Atkinson
“ And no man gave you a fur coat without expecting to receive something in return. Except for one's husband, of course, who expected nothing beyond modest gratitude. Kate Atkinson
“ 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… 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 a girl is simply by the sublime.' Ursula wasn't sure what she meant ('No one is ever sure… Kate Atkinson
“ ' he said. You had to wonder about the French, how they could make a simple 'sorry' sound so extreme and forlorn. Kate Atkinson
