“ Hindsight’s a wonderful thing, Klara said. If we all had it there would be no history to write about. Kate Atkinson
“ Her heart swelled with the high holiness of it all. Imminence was all around. She was both warrior and shining spear. She was a sword glinting in the depths of night, a lance of light piercing the dar… Kate Atkinson
“ He wondered what a visitor from the past would make of it. It used to be the poor who were thin and the rich who were fat, now it seemed to be the other way round. Kate Atkinson
“ He was part of the infinite. The tree and the rock and the water. The rising of the sun and the running of the deer. Kate Atkinson
“ He had taken a few days' leave from his army training and they had taken refuge in the Charing Cross Hotel while an unexploded bomb in the Strand was being dealt with. They could hear the naval guns t… Kate Atkinson
“ Good news?’ Gloria queried. She wondered if Emily was pregnant again (was that good news?), so she was taken aback when Emily said, ‘I’ve found Jesus.’ ‘Oh,’ Gloria said. ‘Where was he? Kate Atkinson
“ From the open French windows Sylvie watched Maurice erecting a makeshift tennis net, which mostly seemed to involve whacking everything in sight with a mallet. Small boys were a mystery to Sylvie. The… Kate Atkinson
“ 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. Kate Atkinson
“ Because you couldn’t make time, she’d been deluded about that. Time was a thief, he stole your life away from you and the only way you could get it back was to outwit him and snatch it right back. Kate Atkinson
“ Because life is an adventure, of course.I would say it was more of an endurance race, Sylvie said. Or an obstacle course. Kate Atkinson
“ Barrage balloons dotted the sky like blind whales bobbing around in the wrong element. Kate Atkinson
“ As the first clod of earth hit her mother’s coffin, Juliet could barely catch a breath. Her mother would suffocate beneath all that earth, she thought, but Juliet was suffocating too. An image came to… Kate Atkinson
“ The great novels of the world were about three things - death, money and sex. Occasionally a whale. Kate Atkinson
“ Although anyone with half a brain must surely be mired in existential gloom all the time) Kate Atkinson
“ Royal blue frock coat covered in gold braid and, even more ridiculously, a top hat. Howell had such an imposing presence that rather than losing dignity in this flunky’s outfit he actually made it see… Kate Atkinson
“ Names that were so bad that when they dared to whisper them (bitch-cunt-whore-poet) to each other beneath the bedclothes, they were like poison in the air. Kate Atkinson
“ He had a firm voice, a nice low register that spoke of both kindness and unassailable authority, which seemed the perfect combination in a man—in the romance novels her mother had been fond of, anyway Kate Atkinson
