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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?

-Kate Atkinson

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Sometimes I Would Like

Kate Atkinson

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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?

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I Had A Novel In The Back Of My Mind When I Won An Ian St James Story Competition In 1993. At The Award Ceremony An Agent Asked Me If I Was Writing A Novel. I Showed Her Four Or Five Chapters Of What Would Become 'behind The Scenes At The Museum' And To My Surprise She Auctioned Them Off.

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

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

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.

When You Chopped Logs With The Ax And They Split Open They Smelled Beautiful, Like Christmas. But When You Split Someone's Head Open It Smelled Like Abattoir And Quite Overpowered The Scent Of The Wild Lilacs You'd Cut And Brought Into The House Only This Morning, Which Was Already Another Life.

I Can't Help But Think That It's An Unfortunate Custom To Name Children After People Who Come To Sticky Ends. Even If They Are Fictional Characters, It Doesn't Bode Well For The Poor Things. There Are Too Many Judes And Tesses And Clarissas And Cordelias Around. If We Must Name Our Children After Literary Figures Then We Should Search Out Happy Ones, Although It's True They Are Much Harder To Find.

What If We Had A Chance To Do It Again And Again, Until We Finally Did Get It Right? Wouldn't That Be Wonderful?

If They Would All Sleep All The Time She Wouldn't Mind Being Their Mother.

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Fairy Tales Opened Up A Door Into My Imagination - They Don't Conform To The Reality That's Around You As A Child. I Started Reading When I Was Three And Read Everything, But I Wanted To Be An Actress.

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It Was A Long Time Ago Now. And It Was Yesterday.

Everyone Said, 'well, You're Very Old For A First Novel,' And I Said, 'how Do You Write When You Haven't Lived? How Do You Write When You Have No Experience? How Do You Write Straight Out Of University?

I Can't Imagine What It Would Be Like To Write In A Relaxed State. I'm Going To Be Writing Some Stories For My Own Interest. I Want To Experiment With Different Things And See If I Can Approach Writing With Much Less Control And In A Better Psychological State. It Will Be Like Breaking Out Of A Straitjacket.

The Grim Reaper, Gloria Corrected Herself - If Anyone Deserved Capital Letters It Was Surely Death. Gloria Would Rather Like To Be The Grim Reaper. She Wouldn't Necessarily Be Grim, She Suspected She Would Be Quite Cheerful (come Along Now, Don't Make Such A Fuss).

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

If People Believed In Eternal Damnation They Might Not Be Seizing The Day Quite So Much.

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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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.

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

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I've Always Loved Mysteries, The Something There That You Didn't Know, And With 'case Histories' I Just Decide To Make That More Up-front.

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.

No Point In Thinking, You Just Have To Get On With Life. We Only Have One After All, We Should Try And Do Our Best. We Can Never Get It Right, But We Must Try.

Become Such As You Are, Having Learned What That Is.

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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.

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

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.

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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.

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

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The Past Is A Cupboard Full Of Light And All You Have To Do Is Find The Key That Opens The Door.

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

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Hindsight's A Wonderful Thing. If We All Had It There Would Be No History To Write About.

Ursula Craved Solitude But She Hated Loneliness, A Conundrum That She Couldn’t Even Begin To Solve.

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