Atkinson Quotes

She made 'pig' sound like a much worse word than it was. Pigs were quite nice. ~ Kate Atkinson

He caught the look on her face, a mixture of distaste and confusion which eventually resolved into something more cryptic. Women usually needed to be acquainted with him a little longer before he saw that expression on their faces. ~ Kate Atkinson

If it hadn't been for this chance hospital encounter, accidental in all senses, Victor might never have courted a girl. He already felt well on his way to middle age, and his social life was still limited to the chess club. Victor didn't really feel the need for another person in his life, in fact he found the concept of "sharing" a life bizarre. He had mathematics, which filled up his time almost completely, so he wasn't entirely sure what he wanted with a wife. Women seemed to him to be in possession of all kinds of undesirable properties, chiefly madness, but also a multiplicity of physical drawbacks - blood, sex, children - which were unsettling and other. ~ Kate Atkinson

God takes the willing heart rather than the obviously powerful as his instruments to use in the Kingdom of God. ~ Dominique Atkinson

In one typical battalion, of forty-one officers who had landed on Sicily in July, only nine remained, and six of them had been wounded, according ~ Rick Atkinson

A soldier would snake his way painfully through rocks and rubble to set up a light machine gun, raise his head cautiously to aim, and find a dozen natives clustered solemnly around him. Street ~ Rick Atkinson

Best always to praise rather than criticize. ~ Kate Atkinson

you can also use either the vSphere Client or the vSphere Web Client for attaching baselines and scanning hosts. ~ Brian Atkinson

Yes, Mrs. Todd, a bonny, bouncing baby girl." Sylvie thought ~ Kate Atkinson

Because I've a track record of talking about books I never write, in Australia they think I'm about to write a book about Jane Austen. Something I said at some festival. ~ Kate Atkinson

There is a Hindu legend that tells us that there was once a time when all men were gods, but they abused their divinity. Brahma, the god of creation, concluded that people had lost the right to their divinity and decided to take it away from them. Wanting to hide it somewhere where they wouldn't be able to find it, he called a council of all the gods to advise him. Some suggested that they bury it deep in the earth, others that they sink it in the ocean, others still suggested it be placed on top of the highest mountain, but Brahma said that mankind was ingenious and would dig down far into the earth, trawl the deepest oceans and climb every mountain in an effort to find it again. 'The gods were on the point of giving up when Brahma said, "I know where we will hide man's divinity, we will hide it inside him. He will search the whole world but never look inside and find what is already within."' Viola ~ Kate Atkinson

I always thought the girl in that picture had the look of a frog about her," Nancy said, thinking, I look enigmatic because I'm dying. "Isn't ~ Kate Atkinson

I heard someone say once that hindsight was a wonderful thing, that without it there would be no history. ~ Kate Atkinson

Sacrifice, by its nature, was predicated on giving, not receiving. ~ Kate Atkinson

So, what do they pay you for ... exactly?"
Slapped around. Tied up. Beaten. Given orders, made to do things."
"What kind of things?"
"You know."
No, I can't even begin to imagine."
"Lick my boots, crawl on floor, eat like dog."
"Nothing useful, then, like hoovering? ~ Kate Atkinson

The evil that men do lives on the front pages of greedy newspapers, but the good is oft interred apathetically inside. ~ Brooks Atkinson

Her soft soul had crystallized. (Just as well, she thought.) She was a sword tempered in the fire. ~ Kate Atkinson

Mrs. Appleyard, in contrast, was thin and sallow and when her husband was out of the apartment Ursula could hear her singing mournfully to herself in a language that she couldn't place. Something Eastern European by the sound of it. How useful Mr. Carver's Esperanto would be, she thought. (Only if everyone spoke it, of course.) And especially these days with so many refugees flooding into London. ~ Kate Atkinson

There is a good deal of solemn cant about the common interests of capital and labor. As matters stand, their only common interest is that of cutting each others throat. ~ Brooks Atkinson

The past is a cupboard full of light and all you have to do is find the key that opens the door. ~ Kate Atkinson

Shop-bought cakes are a sign of sluttish housewifery. ~ Kate Atkinson

If she had been in charge of designing the human race she would have gone about things differently. (A golden shaft of light through the ear for conception perhaps and a well-fitting hatch somewhere modest for escape nine months later.) ~ Kate Atkinson

I like to juggle with one ball at a time. Then I put the ball down and do nothing for extended periods of time. ~ Rowan Atkinson

We're all Bolsheviks now," Izzie said blithely. "And at my table!" Hugh said and laughed. ~ Kate Atkinson

On one of the evenings, apropos of nothing ('apropos' was another new word), when Dr Hunter and Reggie were giving the baby a bath, Dr Hunter turned to Reggie and said, 'You now there are no rules,' and Reggie said, 'Really?' because she could think of a lot of rules, like cutting grapes in half and wearing a cap when you went swimming, not to mention separating all the rubbish for the recycling bins. Unlike Ms MacDonald, recycling was something that Dr Hunter was very keen on. She said, 'No, not those kinds of things, I mean the way we live our lives. There isn't a template, a pattern that we're supposed to follow. There's no one watching us to see if we're doing it properly, there is no properly, we just make it up as we go along. ~ Kate Atkinson

[She] went around with a beatific smile on her face that could be very irritating if you yourself weren't feeling beatific. ~ Kate Atkinson

You don't want to be giving away free-kicks in the penalty area ... ~ Ron Atkinson

I was on the verge of something numinous and profound and in one more second the universe was going to crack open and arcana would rain down on my head like grace and all the cosmic mysteries were going to be revealed. ~ Kate Atkinson

She seemed to have no inkling that life wasn't as orderly as her pencil case and that everything is chance and at any moment any number of remarkable things can happen that are totally beyond our control, events that rip up our maps and re-polarize our compasses - the madwoman walking towards us, the train falling off the bridge, the boy on the bicycle. ~ Kate Atkinson

That which is the Real Self of Man is the Divine Spark sent forth from the Sacred Flame. ~ William Walker Atkinson

A German pilot came out of his plane, drew his legs into a ball, his head down. Papers flew out of his pockets. He did a triple somesault through our formation. No chute. ~ Rick Atkinson

Perhaps we are on an insula ex machina, an artificial place not in the real world at all
a backdrop for the stories we must tell. ~ Kate Atkinson

There is a world outside these walls. ~ Kate Atkinson

This was their third bar since Piccadilly and they were both agreed that the two of them were very drunk but had the capacity to get a good deal drunker yet. ~ Kate Atkinson

When Lillian left work in the early evening the streets were slick and shiny with rain and the lamps flared yellow giving her the melancholy feeling that always came with the rain and the dark. She'd just struggled to push up her umbrella when the farmer from Saskatchewan came out of the shadows and tipped his hat again, very politely, and said could he escort her home? She put her small hand on his broad arm and held the umbrella over both their heads (he was very tall) and he walked her all the way back to her lodging-house where the landlady, Mrs Raicevic, looked after Edmund after school. By then, Lillian had learned the farmer's name and she said, 'Edmund, this is Mr Donner,' and Pete Donner squatted right down and said, 'Hello there, Edmund, you can call me Pete.' Although he never did, preferring to call him 'Pop' almost from the day his mother married him. ~ Kate Atkinson

Photography begins not in the camera but in the
mind and the eye. The real work is one of noticing and appreciating, seeing things clearly and differently, and
sharing that vision with others. I have developed my
vision and my photographic craft in order to bring
the beauty of nature to light in a fresh way that
can inspire and nourish people. ~ Bill Atkinson

he said that when the baby was born, if it was a boy, I was to call it Edward."
"Edward?" Teddy repeated blankly.
"After you."
And for the first time in the whole of the war Teddy broke. ~ Kate Atkinson

In the prosperous household of Sylvie's childhood, Cook was called 'Cook' but Mrs Glover preferred 'Mrs Glover'. It made her irreplaceable. Sylvie still stubbornly referred to her as Cook. ~ Kate Atkinson

pointing. She was completely hopeless. ~ Kate Atkinson

Everyone in daily life carries such a heavy mixed burden on his own conscience that he is reluctant to penalize those who have been caught. ~ Brooks Atkinson

They've certainly grown, the Japanese. I mean grown in stature, playing-wise. ~ Ron Atkinson

I'm always so glad,' Sylvie murmured, 'that I don't have to take a turn at being other people.'
'You're very good at being yourself,' Ursula said, aware that it didn't necessarily sound like a compliment.
'Well, I've had years of practice. ~ Kate Atkinson

That one way or another the Germans were tracking them from the ~ Kate Atkinson

Moments left, Teddy thought. 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. ~ Kate Atkinson

A French writer once observed that, "in the new colonies, the Spanish start by building a church, the English a tavern, and the French a fort. ~ Rick Atkinson

She could see Sylvie and her friends on the lawn below, their dresses fluttering like moths in the encroaching dusk. ~ Kate Atkinson

Energy and invincible determination, these two things will sweep away mighty barriers and will surmount the greatest obstacles ~ William Walker Atkinson

Woodcock would have scored but his shot was too perfect. ~ Ron Atkinson

Thought is a force - a manifestation of energy - having a magnet-like power of attraction. ~ William Walker Atkinson

The path of my life is strewn with cow pats from the devil's own satanic herd! ~ Rowan Atkinson

do a typing and shorthand ~ Kate Atkinson

That was the moment at which he realized that he had possibly become unhinged. What did it matter? The whole world was unhinged. ~ Kate Atkinson

War is Man's greatest fall from grace, of course, especially perhaps when we feel a moral imperative to fight it and find ourselves twisted into ethical knots. We can never doubt (ever) the courage of those men in the Halifaxes and Stirlings and Lancasters but the bombing war was undoubtedly a brutish affair, a crude method employing a blunt weapon, continually hampered by the weather and lack of technology (despite massive advances that war always precipitates). The large gap between what was claimed for the results of the bombing campaign and what was actually achieved was never fully understood at the time, and certainly not, I suspect, by those men flying the bombers. ~ Kate Atkinson

Say "Yes" to the seedlings and a giant forest cleaves the sky. Say "Yes" to the universe and the planets become your neighbors. Say "Yes" to dreams of love and freedom. It is the password to utopia. ~ Brooks Atkinson

She supposed she was a little cog in the big wheel of Empire. "Nothing wrong with being a cog," Maurice said, himself now a big wheel in the Home Office. "The world needs cogs. ~ Kate Atkinson

In the 1920s dramatists attacked their subjects as if the inequities could be resolved. Some of the traditional optimism of America lurked behind most of the early plays. But not now. There is no conviction now that the problem will be solved. ~ Brooks Atkinson

Bridget wiped her tears vigorously on her apron and said, Must get on with the tea. ~ Kate Atkinson

They must go for it now as they have nothing to lose but the match. ~ Ron Atkinson

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

Walking companions, like heroes, are difficult to pluck out of the crowd of acquaintances. Good dispositions, ready wit, friendly conversation serve well enough by the fireside but they prove insufficient in the field. For there you need transcendentalists-nothing less; you need poets, sages, humorists and natural philosophers. ~ Brooks Atkinson

No twenty-first-century reader can understand the ultimate triumph of the Allied powers in World War II in 1945 without a grasp of the large drama that unfolded in North Africa in 1942 and 1943. The liberation of western Europe is a triptych, each panel informing the others: first, North Africa; then, Italy; and finally the invasion of Normandy and the subsequent campaigns across France, the Low Countries, and Germany. From a distance of sixty years, we can see that North Africa was a pivot point in American history, the place where the United States began to act like a great power - militarily, diplomatically, strategically, tactically. ~ Rick Atkinson

Hindsight's a wonderful thing," Klara said. "If we all had it there would be no history to write about. ~ Kate Atkinson

Get down,' Bunty says grimly. 'Mummy's thinking.' (Although what Mummy's actually doing is wondering what it would be like if her entire family was wiped out and she could start again.) ~ Kate Atkinson

Alternate history fascinates me, as it fascinates all novelists, because 'What if?' is the big thing. ~ Kate Atkinson

Beckenbauer has really gambled all his eggs. ~ Ron Atkinson

When I started 'Case Histories,' the characters were all going to Antarctica on a cruise. The first part was called 'Embarkation.' It was supposed to be about everyone preparing to embark on the cruise, but it mushroomed into an entire book. ~ Kate Atkinson

I know where he should have put his flag up, and he'd have got plenty of help.
(said at Stamford Bridge) ~ Ron Atkinson

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

This, of course, not ~ William Walker Atkinson

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...and said to his mother, "Can you tidy it up a bit back there? ~ Kate Atkinson

Popular versurs literary - a false divide? ~ Kate Atkinson

How wonderfully, joyously, untrammeled he had been then in his happiness. She thought it was fixed for ever, she didn't realize that childhood happiness dissolves away. If she had realized that Archie wasn't going to be that sunny innocent child for ever she would have laid up every moment as treasure. ~ Kate Atkinson

The presence of an active, energetic, successful man, or set of men, in a place, will permeate the place with positive vibrations that will stimulate all who abide there. ~ William Walker Atkinson

It seems not to have been written. It is the quintessence of life. It is the basic truth. ~ Brooks Atkinson

Life's a bastard then you die. Then death seems determined to be a bigger bastard by setting demons loose on you. ~ Ian Atkinson

We generally see that for which we look. ~ William Walker Atkinson

It's a bit disconcerting being treated like Madonna. ~ Rowan Atkinson

I feel as if I'm waiting for something dreadful to happen, and then I realize it already has. ~ Kate Atkinson

To succeed at anything, you must want it very much. Desire must be in evidence in order to attract ~ William Walker Atkinson

If you don't control your life, someone else will. ~ John Atkinson Grimshaw

I have always worried about things more than I should. ~ Rowan Atkinson

Louise was an urbanite, she preferred the gut-thrilling sound of an emergency siren slicing through the night to the noise of country birds at dawn. Pub brawls, rackety roadworks, mugged tourists, the badlands on a Saturday night - they all made sense, they were all part of the huge, dirty, torn social fabric. There was a war raging out there in the city and she was part of the fight, but the countryside unsettled her because she didn't know who the enemy was. She had always preferred North and South to Wuthering Heights. All that demented running around the moors, identifying yourself with the scenery, not a good role model for a woman. ~ Kate Atkinson

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

Out of suffering comes creativity ~ Kristine Atkinson

What would I put in my bottom drawer? – I would put only sharp objects, the clean lines of broken glass, the honed steel of paring knives, the tiny saw-teeth of bread knives and the soothing edges of razor blades, I weigh knives in my hands like strange comforters. ~ Kate Atkinson

Sylvie's children really only came into focus for her when in isolation. Together, they were an unwieldy flock, singly they had character. ~ 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, Miss Woolf said, a common language was a wonderful idea, but utterly utopian. All good ideas were, she said sadly. ~ Kate Atkinson

Stella was one of Mr Bullock's 'chorus girls' and confessed (readily) to being a 'striptease artiste' but Mr Armitage the opera singer said, "We're all artistes here, darling."
"What a bloody fairy that man is," Mr Bullock muttered, "put him in the army, that would sort him out." "I doubt it," Miss Woolf said. (And it did rather beg the question why the strapping Mr Bullock himself had not been called up for active service.) "So," Mr Bullock concluded, "we've got a Yid, a pansy and a tart, sounds like a dirty music-hall joke."
"It is intolerance that has brought us to this pass, Mr Bullock," Miss Woolf reproved him midly. ~ Kate Atkinson

...it had probably been a long enough life. Yet suddenly it all seemed like an illusion, a dream that had happened to someone else. What an odd thing existence was. ~ Kate Atkinson

This Jackson bloke was the ruddy Scarlet Pimpernel, here, there and everywhere, always one step ahead of Barry. And everywhere he went, women were disappearing. ~ Kate Atkinson

But I, you know, if I could choose a period to go back to, I think I would like to live through the Blitz. 'Cause you do read so many accounts of people saying they're living their lives at such an intense pitch that it was a completely different way of living. ~ Kate Atkinson

I don't think I have one particular favourite writer. I have many whose works I will always buy or reread - Muriel Spark, Anthony Powell, Robert Louis Stevenson, Ruth Rendell, James Ellroy, William McIlvanney, Kate Atkinson, John Burnside, Louise Welsh, Iain Banks. ~ Ian Rankin

A man's real possession is his memory; in nothing else is he rich; in nothing else is he poor." Richter has said: "Memory is the only paradise from which we cannot be driven away. Grant but memory to us, and we can lose nothing by death. ~ William Walker Atkinson

In the ideal sense nothing is uninteresting; there are only uninterested people. ~ Brooks Atkinson

•"As I was leaving this morning, I said to myself, 'The last thing you must do is forget your speech.' And, sure enough, as I left the house this morning, the last thing I did was to forget my speech. ~ Rowan Atkinson

I am mad, I think. I am mad therefore I think. I am mad therefore I think I am. ~ Kate Atkinson

A lizard, resting in the shade of the anthill, studied Atkinson with interest, tilting its head this way and that. Atkinson studied it in return. A small, dull brown animal, usually it would not catch Atkinson's attention, but under the circumstances it became a thing of beauty. ~ Martin Marais

Vitality, or Prana-Jiva; (3) Astral Body, or Linga-Sharira; (4) Animal Soul, or Kama-Rupa; (5) Human Soul, Manas; (6) Spiritual Soul, or Buddhi; and (7) Spirit, or Atma. Of these seven principles, the last or higher Three, namely, the Atma, Buddhi, and Manas, compose the higher Trinity of the Soul - the part of man which persists; while the lower Four principles, namely, Rupa, Prana-Jiva, Linga-Sharira, and Kama-Rupa, respectively, are ~ William Walker Atkinson

The customer is always right' may have become a standard motto in the world of business, but the idea that 'the audience is always right,' has yet to make much of an impression on the world of presentation, even though for the duration of the presentation at least, the audience is the speaker's only customer. ~ Max Atkinson

but how could you spoil a child - by neglect, yes, but not by love. You had to give them all the love you could, even though giving that much love could cause you pain and anguish and horror and, in the end, love could destroy you. ~ Kate Atkinson