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764dc6d
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She should have done science, not spent all her time with her head in novels. Novels gave you a completely false idea about life, they told lies and they implied there were endings when in reality there were no endings, everything just went on and on and on.
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life
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Kate Atkinson |
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34bbef6
|
Ursula craved solitude but she hated loneliness, a conundrum that she couldn't even begin to solve.
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Kate Atkinson |
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9e70519
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What if we had a chance to do it again and again, until we finally did get it right? Wouldn't that be wonderful?
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Kate Atkinson |
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812755f
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The beginning is the word and the end is silence. And in between are all the stories.
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Kate Atkinson |
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4459349
|
I feel as if I'm waiting for something dreadful to happen, and then I realize it already has.
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Kate Atkinson |
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c677bd6
|
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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politician
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Kate Atkinson |
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caaec9d
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Life wasn't about becoming, was it? It was about being.
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life
being
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Kate Atkinson |
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1b59b6a
|
Sometimes it was harder to change the past than it was the future.
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future
past
kate-atkinson
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Kate Atkinson |
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49937f1
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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.
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Kate Atkinson |
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714e298
|
It was a long time ago now. And it was yesterday.
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Kate Atkinson |
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5aa3f2d
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Do not tell secrets to those whose faith and silence you have not already tested.
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Kate Atkinson |
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15825c9
|
They said love made you strong, but in Louise's opinion it made you weak. It corkscrewed into your heart and you couldn't get it out again, not without ripping your heart to pieces.
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weakness
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Kate Atkinson |
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4a04c47
|
Sometimes,' Sylvie said, 'one can mistake gratitude for love.
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Kate Atkinson |
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f564e48
|
She had never been without a book for as long as she could remember. An only child never is.
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Kate Atkinson |
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8087738
|
In the end, it is my belief, words are the only things that can construct a world that makes sense.
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Kate Atkinson |
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f6a7a5c
|
Most people muddled through events and only in retrospect realized their significance.
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Kate Atkinson |
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b12e799
|
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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Kate Atkinson |
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6de2442
|
Do not equate nationalism with patriotism... Nationalism is the first step on the road to Fascism.
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Kate Atkinson |
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c09cf04
|
She doesn't believe in dogs," Bridget said. "Dogs are hardly an article of faith," Sylvie said."
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Kate Atkinson |
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582accc
|
Become such as you are, having learned what that is.
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Kate Atkinson |
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e796643
|
Literature had fuelled her childhood fantasies and convinced her that one day she would be the heroine of her own narrative.
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Kate Atkinson |
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c542be1
|
Love was the hardest thing. Don't let anyone ever tell you different.
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Kate Atkinson |
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cb6206e
|
You must never believe everything they say about a person. Generally speaking, most of it will be lies, half-truths at best.
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Kate Atkinson |
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3573900
|
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 are killed?" "Then others must remember ."
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Kate Atkinson |
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1e5a488
|
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.
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Kate Atkinson |
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822033f
|
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."
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Kate Atkinson |
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35277b7
|
Oh, God. What was happening to her, she was turning into a normal person.
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Kate Atkinson |
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7993c7c
|
Fiction had never been Jackson's thing. Facts seemed challenging enough without making stuff up. What he discovered was that the great novels of the world were about three things - death, money and sex. Occasionally a whale.
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Kate Atkinson |
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bbe9e84
|
I have been to the world's end and back and now I know what I would put in my bottom drawer. I would put my sisters.
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Kate Atkinson |
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beb8b97
|
Hindsight's a wonderful thing," Klara said. "If we all had it there would be no history to write about."
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|
Kate Atkinson |
|
7b48bc5
|
Ursula craved solitude but she hated loneliness
|
|
solitude
loneliness
hate
life
lonely
|
Kate Atkinson |
|
74f9a07
|
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.
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Kate Atkinson |
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4b6e012
|
Pamela, even at a distance, was the voice of her conscience, but then it was very easy to have a conscience from a distance.
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Kate Atkinson |
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1ae8cb9
|
Whatever happens to you, embrace it, the good and the bad equally. Death is just one more thing to be embraced.
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Kate Atkinson |
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1b216f0
|
If they would all sleep all the time she wouldn't mind being their mother.
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Kate Atkinson |
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dc0407b
|
All that is necessary for the forces of evil to win is for enough good women to do nothing.
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Kate Atkinson |
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39a22e5
|
The purpose of Art," his mother, Sylvie, said--instructed even--"is to convey the truth of a thing, not to be the truth itself."
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Kate Atkinson |
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dd1f008
|
A coincidence is just an explanation waiting to happen
|
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|
Kate Atkinson |
|
fc15a26
|
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.
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past
|
Kate Atkinson |
|
1692c1c
|
If people believed in eternal damnation they might not be seizing the day quite so much.
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|
Kate Atkinson |
|
59536d8
|
but one cannot look backward, only forward. What has passed has passed forever.
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Kate Atkinson |
|
6169042
|
She was a terrible mother, there was no doubt about it, but she didn't even have the strength to feel guilty.
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|
Kate Atkinson |
|
c68c265
|
You can step in the same river but the water will always be new.
|
|
|
Kate Atkinson |
|
e37db69
|
Her heart swelled with the high holiness of it all. Imminence was all around. She was both warrior and shining spear. She was a sword glinting in the depths of night, a lance of light piercing the darkness. There would be no mistakes this time.
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Kate Atkinson |