Atkinson Quotes & Sayings

The mountain panorama was the backdrop to every photo taken here, the backdrop to everything. At first Ursula had thought it beautiful, now she was beginning to find its magnificence oppressive. The great icy crags and the rushing waterfalls, the endless pine trees
nature and myth fused to form the Germanic sublimated soul. German Romanticism, it seemed to Ursula, was write large and mystical, the English Lakes seemed tame by comparison. And the English soul, if it resided anywhere, was surely in some unheroic back garden
a patch of lawn, a bed of roses, a row of runner beans. — Kate Atkinson

You said five little words to someone
How can I help you?
and it was as if you'd mortgaged your soul out to them. — Kate Atkinson

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. — Kate Atkinson

Needs must, and so on. — Kate Atkinson

Scholes and Van Nistelrooy drugged the last two defenders. — Ron Atkinson

There is something within our biological structure that screams out and says it is morally wrong for the old to outlive the young. This is one of the times when God doesn't seem to make sense. This is the worst that life gets. — Rick Atkinson

The humorous man recognizes that absolute purity, absolute justice, absolute logic and perfection are beyond human achievement and that men have been able to live happily for thousands of years in a state of genial frailty. — Brooks Atkinson

Tracy thought she must be missing something, it felt like the same world as ever to her. The rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer, kids everywhere falling through the cracks. The Victorians would have recognized it. People just watched a lot more TV and found celebrities interesting, that was all that was different. — Kate Atkinson

sequiturs. 'That's got nothing to do with it,' Teddy — Kate Atkinson

We cheerfully assume that in some mystic way love conquers all, that good outweighs evil in the just balances of the universe and at the 11th hour something gloriously triumphant will prevent the worst before it happens. — Brooks Atkinson

He's the equivalent of the Spanish David Beckham. — Ron Atkinson

Someone in the England team will have to grab the ball by the horns. — Ron Atkinson

Having spent a substantial part of my career parodying religious figures from my own Christian background, I am aghast at the notion that it could, in effect, be made illegal to imply ridicule of a religion or to lampoon religious figures. — Rowan 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

... how overwhelming the feelings of love and terror, the desperate desire to protect. How much stronger would those feelings be if it were her own child? Perhaps too strong to bear. — Kate Atkinson

I've had this sneaking feeling throughout the game that it's there to be won. — Ron Atkinson

Many other teachings, has its esoteric or inner phase, — William Walker 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

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

People who live on their own do tend to witter. We live without restraint, verbal at any rate.' Nigel — Kate Atkinson

I wanted her for what she was, but when I got her I wanted her to change. — Kate Atkinson

Bluestocking, Nancy. Married life has quite changed something — Kate Atkinson

Well, we all get on,' Sylvie said, 'one way or another. And in the end we all arrive at the same place. I hardly see that it matters how we get there.' It — Kate Atkinson

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

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. — Kate Atkinson

Cars are like rolling diaries, metal and plastic and paint tableaux of the last ten years of their drivers' lives ... every dent, every drooping slice of chrome, has a story behind it. — Jim Atkinson

Most people muddled through events and only in retrospect realized their significance. — Kate Atkinson

Or was it, as everyone told her, and as she must believe, all in her head? And so what if it was - wasn't everything in her head real too? What if there was no demonstrable reality? What if there was nothing beyond the mind? — Kate Atkinson

We cannot turn away," Miss Woolf told her, "we must get on with our job and we must bear witness." What did that mean, Ursula wondered. "It means," Miss Woolf said, "that we must remember these people when we are safely in the future."
"And if we are killed?"
"Then others must remember us. — Kate Atkinson

Women should be in the kitchen, the discotheque and the boutique, but not in football. — Ron Atkinson

The purpose of Art is to convey the truth of a thing, not to be the truth itself. SYLVIE BERESFORD TODD — Kate Atkinson

Doing nothing was much more productive than people thought; Jackson often had his most profound insights when he appeared to be entirely idle. He didn't get bored, he just went into a nothing kind of place. — Kate Atkinson

Kate Atkinson is an absolute must-read. I love everything she writes. — Harlan Coben

It is, as calls to arms go, straightforward. Crystal clear. And if you aren't looking forward to Spurs and Kazan, to Southampton and Bournemouth, if that just doesn't get you going, wanting to be emotional, unashamedly emotional, optimistic, passionate in a way that outsiders love to mock and our own meek minded souls call 'embarrassing' then you know what? There's the door. There is the door, and you can walk through it, and both you and us will be happier for that. Because, for ninety minutes every few days, this fella represents Liverpool, eleven lads wearing Red represent Liverpool and we represent Liverpool. Wherever we are on globe, with an even greater responsibility if we are in the stadium. — Neil Atkinson

'PhotoCard' has 20 times as much code as the sum of 'QuickDraw,' 'MacPaint,' and 'HyperCard.' It is more elaborate and complicated, with all the client and server stuff. It took a lot more of me to do this than other projects, requiring an almost Mother Teresa dedication to do it. — Bill Atkinson

I was born in Munich, and my father was stationed in Salzburg. For the first three years of my life, I lived in Austria back when the American Army was still in Austria. I grew up subsequently in posts around the country around veterans. — Rick Atkinson

For me their biggest threat is when they get into the attacking part of the field. — Ron Atkinson

After Marlee was born they rented videos and fell asleep in front of them. Now, like so much else in Jackson's world, videos were obsolete. — Kate Atkinson

What did you do when the worst thing that could happen to you had already happened - how did you live life then? You had to hand it to Theo Wyre, just carrying on living required a strength and courage that most people didn't have. — Kate Atkinson

Fanning Court. God forbid. Teddy could no longer sit in the chair. He could no longer leave the bed, no longer do anything. He was approaching the end of his twilight, entering into the final darkness. Viola imagined the synapses in her father's brain flaring and dimming like the slow death of a star. Soon Teddy would burn out completely and implode and become a black hole. Viola was hazy on the subject of astrophysics, but she liked the image. — Kate Atkinson

Happiness, like life itself, was as fragile as a bird's heartbeat, as fleeting as the bluebells in the wood, but while it lasted, — Kate Atkinson

Dwarfs can often do the work of giants when they are transformed by the almost magic power of great mental concentration. — William Walker Atkinson

How are they defensively, attacking-wise? — Ron Atkinson

I don't even know what the odds are for one kid or one team to make it here. Obviously, being from Canada this is their Stanley Cup - they made it. It's hard enough to get here and it's hard enough to advance. — John Atkinson

There's nobody fitter at his age, except maybe Raquel Welch. — Ron Atkinson

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

Certainly I had a really terrible time with 'Emotionally Weird.' When I finished it, I thought, 'I can't write any more.' — Kate Atkinson

Now Manchester United are 2-1 down on aggregate, they are in a better position than when they started the game at 1-1. — Ron Atkinson

Don't you wonder sometimes,' Ursula said. 'If just one small thing had been changed, in the past, I mean. If Hitler had died at birth, or if someone had kidnapped him as a baby and brought him up in
I don't know, say, a Quaker household
surely things would be different. — Kate Atkinson

She had one of those husky voices that sounded as if she were permanently coming down with a cold. Men seemed to find that sexy in a woman, which Jackson thought was odd because it made women sound less like women and more like men. Maybe it was a gay thing. — Kate Atkinson

And I can't cry, I don't even want to cry. My tears would never do justice to this loss. — Kate Atkinson

He dribbles a lot and the opposition don't like it - you can see it all over their faces — Ron Atkinson

Sweet sixteen," Hugh said, kissing her affectionately. "Happy birthday, little bear. Your future's all ahead of you." Ursula still harbored the feeling that some of her future was also behind her but she had learned not to voice such things. — Kate Atkinson

They scored too early. — Ron Atkinson

They were both Filipino and laughed no matter what you said. Were the Philippines really such a happy place or were the carers just happy not to be there? — Kate Atkinson

Harold?' 'Poor man, I suppose — Kate Atkinson

he inadvertently opened the door to a storeroom on the station and found it full of aircrew uniforms on hangers. He thought they must be replacement issue until he looked more closely and saw the brevets and stripes and ribbon medals and realized they had come off the bodies of the dead and injured. The empty uniforms would have provided a poetic image if he hadn't more or less relinquished poetry by then. — Kate Atkinson

Now it would not be the geography of Empire that would make him, it would be the architecture of war. — Kate Atkinson

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

It was the kind of summer evening that made Ursula want to be alone. 'Oh,' Izzie said, 'You're at an age when a girl is simply consumed by the sublime.' Ursula wasn't sure what she meant ('No one is ever sure what she means,' Sylvie said) but she thought she understood a little. There was a strangeness in the shimmering air, a sense of imminence that made Ursula's chest feel full, as if her heart was growing. It was a kind of high holiness - she could think of no other way of describing it. Perhaps it was the future, she thought, coming nearer all the time. — Kate Atkinson

I find the past so fascinating. Photographs are strange, almost surreal, almost here yet gone. I slip into thinking what the past must have been like and I enjoy creating that ambience and atmosphere - 1730 to around 1870 is the most interesting period. — 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

Do not tell secrets to those whose faith and silence you have not already tested. — Kate Atkinson

The legacy of the fairy story in my brain is that everything will work out. In fiction it would be very hard for me, as a writer, to give a bad ending to a good character, or give a good ending to a bad character. That's probably not a very postmodern thing to say. — Kate Atkinson

There was always a second before the siren started when she was aware of a sound as yet unheard. It was like an echo, or rather the opposite of an echo. An echo came afterwards, but was there a word for what came before? — Kate Atkinson

There were almost 11,000 American soldiers killed in Germany in April of 1945, the last full month of the war. That's almost as many as died in June, 1944. Right to the very end, it was absolutely brutal. — Rick Atkinson

The great art of memory is attention ... Inattentive people have always bad memories. — William Walker Atkinson

Mr. Bean is essentially a child trapped in the body of a man. All cultures identify with children in a similar way, so he has this bizarre global outreach. — Rowan Atkinson

A woman should be a comfort and a relief, a restful pillow for the weary head. — Kate Atkinson

If you don't run your own life, somebody else will. — John Atkinson

Why, Honey, it looks like you're trying to fit 6 lbs of sugar into a 5 lb bag there. Bless your heart. — Ginny 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 seem strangely distinguished. Howell — Kate Atkinson

I think the character does tend to suit an episodic thing, because what's fun about him is that he doesn't care about anyone else, and it's very difficult for a main character - a lead character - in a movie to not care about anybody else. — Rowan 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 like it because nobody cared about her. In fact, she could sit there all day, from Barney and Friends to Porn Babes Laid Bare, with hours of the Landscape Channel in between, and eat the contents of an entire biscuit factory until she was an obese, earthbound balloon whose dead and bloated body would have to be hydraulically lifted from the house by a fire crew because nobody cared. — Kate Atkinson

I have gotten a couple of letters meant for Mr. Bean aka Rowan Atkinson. These letters would say things like, 'You're so funny, you make me laugh, with your big rubbery face,' and I would say, 'You can't mean me!' — Sean Bean

Scars heal," Sylvie said. "Even the worst ones. — Kate Atkinson

If you are not satisfied with what is coming to you, start to work and change your mental attitude and mental states, and you will see a change gradually setting in. — William Walker Atkinson

Ursula craved solitude but she hated loneliness, a conundrum that she couldn't even begin to solve. — Kate 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

(" 'Sacrifice,' " Sylvie said, "is a word that makes people feel noble about slaughter.") But, — Kate Atkinson

do a typing and shorthand — Kate Atkinson

Don't be condescending to unskilled labor. Try it for a half a day first. — Brooks Atkinson

I usually start writing a novel that I then abandon. When I say abandon, I don't think any writer ever abandons anything that they regard as even a half-good sentence. So you recycle. I mean, I can hang on to a sentence for several years and then put it into a book that's completely different from the one it started in. — Kate Atkinson

Bureaucracies are designed to perform public business. But as soon as a bureaucracy is established, it develops an autonomous spiritual life and comes to regard the public as its enemy. — Brooks Atkinson

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

How strange it was that people just kept on going, even when their world no longer existed. — Kate Atkinson

Put forth the necessary concentrated effort and you will be wonderfully helped form sources unknown to you. — William Walker Atkinson

I suffer from the usual difficulty that besets the higher commander - things can be ordered and started, but actual execution at the front has to be turned over to someone else. — Rick Atkinson

They're definitely going to declare war tomorrow. In the morning. It's probably timed so that the nation can get down on its collective knees in church and pray for deliverance.' 'Oh, yes, war is always so Christian, isn't it? — 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

Long lazy days like these will never come again in your life. You think they will but they won't.' -Sylvie — Kate Atkinson

It takes most men five years to recover from a college education, and to learn that poetry is as vital to thinking as knowledge. — Brooks Atkinson

Olivia was her only beautiful child. Julia, with her dark curls and snub nose, was pretty but her character wasn't, Sylvia
poor Sylvia, what could you say? And Amelia was somehow ... bland, but Olivia, Olivia was spun from light. It seemed impossible that she was Victor's child, although, unfortunately, there was no doubting the fact. Olivia was the only one she loved, although God knows she tried her best with the others. Everything was from duty, nothing from love. Duty killed you in the end. — Kate Atkinson

Like many writers, I started by writing short stories. I needed to learn how to write and stories are the most practical way to do this, and less soul-destroying than working your way through a lengthy novel and then discovering it's rubbish. — Kate Atkinson

They've come out at half time and gone bang. — Ron 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

But appearance and reality were different things, weren't they? — Kate Atkinson

Some might count sheep. Teddy counted the towns and cities he had tried to destroy, that had tried to destroy him. Perhaps they had succeeded. — Kate Atkinson

Normally she restricts herself to a very narrow spectrum of emotions (irritable, irritated, irritating). — Kate Atkinson

Prana (life energy) colored by the tought of the sender may be projected to persons at a distance, who are willing to receive it, and the healing can be done this way. — William Walker Atkinson