“ I had an idea of him,’ Ursula said, ‘but the idea wasn’t him. Perhaps I wanted to fall in love. Kate Atkinson
“ How useful Mr. Carver’s Esperanto would be, she thought. (Only if everyone spoke it, of course.) Kate Atkinson
“ How calm the house was. How deceptive that could be. One could lose everything in the blink of an eye, the slip of a foot. One must avoid dark thoughts at all costs, she said to Ursula. Kate Atkinson
“ He was the perfect gentleman and, unlike the salesmen in the Fitzrovia hotel, there were no attempts at fumbling—in fact they often performed an awkward little dance around their small office to avoid… Kate Atkinson
“ Giselle would rouse herself from her torpor occasionally (she moved like a particularly lazy cat) in order to despise something. Kate Atkinson
“ Fine,’ she said, using the universal Scottish word for every state of being from ‘I’m dying in anguish’ to ‘I’m experiencing euphoric joy.’ ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘I’m fine. Kate Atkinson
“ Fiction had never been Jackson's thing. Facts seemed challenging enough without making stuff up. What he discovered was that the great novels of the world were about three things - death, money and se… Kate Atkinson
“ Diamond Jubilee with him for extra contrition. Her father was clearly exhausted, sleeping almost all the time now, like an aged dog. Why didn’t he just go? Was he hanging on for a hundred? Two more ye… Kate Atkinson
“ But when you split someone’s head open it smelled like an abattoir and quite overpowered the scent of the wild lilacs you’d cut and brought into the house only this morning, which was already in anoth… Kate Atkinson
“ And then suddenly she was on her feet, her heart knocking in her chest, a sudden familiar but long-forgotten terror triggered- but by what? Kate Atkinson
“ And she could be depressed if she wanted to be, she could sit and watch Dogs with Jobs on the National Geographic Channel and eat her way through a packet of chocolate bourbon biscuits if she felt lik… Kate Atkinson
“ Amelia looked at the eggs-like sickly, jaundiced eyes-and thought of her own eggs, a handful left, old shrivelled like musty dried fruit where once they must have been bursting toward the light Kate Atkinson
“ All that is necessary for the forces of evil to win is for enough good women to do nothing. Kate Atkinson
“ Ah, but the rich are different,’ the footman said, ‘they take a lot more looking after. Kate Atkinson
“ A simple acceptance of what comes to us, regarding it as neither bad nor good. as he would have it, Dr Kellet continued ... It means become who you are, he said. Kate Atkinson
“ A handful of heartbeats. That was what life was. A heartbeat followed by a heartbeat. A breath followed by a breath. One moment followed by another moment and then there was a last moment. Life was a… Kate Atkinson
“ A good rule of thumb was that the more noise someone was making the less likely they were to die. Kate Atkinson
“ ‘Sacrifice,’ Sylvie said, is a word that makes people feel noble about slaughter.) But, Kate Atkinson
“ Those fateful words We are now at war with Germany, and for several hours felt strangely numb. She tried to phone Pamela Kate Atkinson
“ Her proficiency in the Classics would somehow stand her in better stead when opening and closing filing-cabinet drawers and conducting endless searches among a sea of buff-coloured folders. It wasn’t… Kate Atkinson
