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Jennifer Had Never Liked The Pain Of Remembering What Had Happened, But For Theo It Was The Pain That Kept Laura Alive In His Memory. He Was Afraid That If It Ever Began To Heal She Would Disappear.

-Kate Atkinson

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Jennifer Had Never Liked

Kate Atkinson

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Jennifer Had Never Liked The Pain Of Remembering What Had Happened, But For Theo It Was The Pain That Kept Laura Alive In His Memory. He Was Afraid That If It Ever Began To Heal She Would Disappear.

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The Great Thing About Writing Compared To Life Is Getting To Tie Things Up.

Sylvia Loved Secrets And Even If She Didn't Have Any Secrets She Made Sure That You Thought She Did. Amelia Had No Secrets, Amelia Knew Nothing. When She Grew Up She Planned To Know Everything And To Keep It All A Secret.

Oh, God. What Was Happening To Her, She Was Turning Into A Normal Person.

Julia's Vocabulary Was "chock-full" Of Strangely Archaic Words - "spiffing," "crumbs," "jeepers" - That Seemed To Have Originated In Some Prewar Girls' Annual Rather Than In Julia's Own Life. For Jackson, Words Were Functional, They Helped You Get To Places And Explain Things. For Julia, They Were Freighted With Inexplicable Emotion.

She Doesn't Believe In Dogs," Bridget Said. "dogs Are Hardly An Article Of Faith," Sylvie Said.

My Father Was An Autodidact. It Wasn't A Middle-class House. Shopkeepers Are Aspirant. He Paid For Me To Go To Private School. He Was Denied An Education - He Had A Horrible Childhood. He Got A Place At A Grammar School And Wasn't Allowed To Go.

Sometimes It Was Harder To Change The Past Than It Was The Future.

He Was Born A Politician. No, Ursula Thought, He Was Born A Baby, Like Everyone Else. And This Is What He Has Chosen To Become.

Sometimes I Would Like To Cry. I Close My Eyes. Why Weren't We Designed So That We Can Close Our Ears As Well? (perhaps Because We Would Never Open Them.) Is There Some Way That I Could Accelerate My Evolution And Develop Earlids?

The Past Is What You Take With You.

You Can Step In The Same River But The Water Will Always Be New.

Most People Muddled Through Events And Only In Retrospect Realized Their Significance.

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.

You Must Never Believe Everything They Say About A Person. Generally Speaking, Most Of It Will Be Lies, Half-truths At Best.

Not Being Published Would Be Great. When I Say That To Other Writers They Look At Me As If I'm Totally Insane.

It Wasn't That [he] Believed In Religion, Or A God, Or An Afterlife. He Just Knew It Was Impossible To Feel This Much Love And For It To End.

Sylvie's Knowledge, Like Izzie's, Was Random Yet Far-ranging, 'the Sign That One Has Acquired One's Learning From Reading Novels Rather Than An Education.

I'm A Lapsed Quaker. I Don't Go To Meetings Any More. But I'm Very Drawn To Catholicism - All That Glitter. I'd Love To Be A Catholic. I Think It Would Be Fantastic - Faith, Forgiveness, Absolution, Extreme Unction - All These Wonderful Words. I Don't Think Anyone Who Was Ever Born A Catholic Hasn't Died A Catholic, No Matter How Lapsed They Are.

Patricia Embraces Me On The Station Platform. 'the Past Is What You Leave Behind In Life, Ruby,' She Says With The Smile Of A Reincarnated Lama. 'nonsense, Patricia,' I Tell Her As I Climb On Board My Train. 'the Past's What You Take With You.

When I'm Writing, My Neural Pathways Get Blocked. I Can't Read. I Can Barely Hold A Conversation Without Forgetting Words And Names. I Wish I Could Wear The Same Clothes And Eat The Same Food Each Day.

Ethics Are Not Necessarily To Do With Being Law-abiding. I Am Very Interested In The Moral Path, Doing The Right Thing.

I Am Mad, I Think. I Am Mad Therefore I Think. I Am Mad Therefore I Think I Am.

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.'

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.

Why Is Everything An 'adventure' With You?" Sylvie Said Irritably To Izzie." "because Life Is An Adventure, Of Course." "i Would Say It Was More Of An Endurance Race," Sylvie Said. "or An Obstacle Course.

I Think About Death A Lot, I Really Do, Because I Can't Believe I Won't Exist. It's The Ego Isn't It? I Feel That I Should Retreat Into A Better Form Of Zen Buddhism Than This Kind Of Ego-dominated Thing. But I Don't Know, I Mean, I Want To Come Back As A Tree But I Suspect That It's Just Not Going To Happen, Is It?

Men Had No Purpose On Earth Whereas Women Were Gods Walking Unrecognized Among Them.

(although Anyone With Half A Brain Must Surely Be Mired In Existential Gloom All The Time)

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I Spent Four Years Doing A Doctorate In Postmodern American Literature. I Can Recognize It When I See It.

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Jennifer Had Never Liked The Pain Of Remembering What Had Happened, But For Theo It Was The Pain That Kept Laura Alive In His Memory. He Was Afraid That If It Ever Began To Heal She Would Disappear.

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