Kate Atkinson
Kate Atkinson
Kate Atkinson, MBEis an award-winning English writer. She won the Whitbread Book of the Year prize in 1995 and, under its new name the Costa Book Awards, in 2013 and 2015 in the Novels category...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionAuthor
children character thinking
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.
rain profound grace
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.
eye ears way
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?
mother doubt guilty
She was a terrible mother, there was no doubt about it, but she didn't even have the strength to feel guilty.
law abiding path
Ethics are not necessarily to do with being law-abiding. I am very interested in the moral path, doing the right thing.
embrace whatever-happens just-one
Whatever happens to you, embrace it, the good and the bad equally. Death is just one more thing to be embraced.
rivers water steps
You can step in the same river but the water will always be new.
book writing ideas
I don't have goals when writing books, apart from getting to the end. I have rather vague ideas about how I want things to feel, I'm big on ambience. I have a title, a beginning and a probable ending and go from there.
writing would-be stories
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.
unique voice unique-voices
If you don't have a unique voice, then you're not really a writer.
book men creepy
It's been said that the men in my books have been absent, or weak, or creepy.
insane would-be looks
Not being published would be great. When I say that to other writers they look at me as if I'm totally insane.
book thinking giving
Probably not needing to be published would give me more time to think about a book.
writing ties life-is
The great thing about writing compared to life is getting to tie things up.