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0659647
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She was flawed, no longer intact. On the other hand, she felt as if she had been scourged clean. The past no longer weighed so heavily on the present.
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Kate Atkinson |
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5462909
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Fat people weren't supposed to eat anything, but they were especially not supposed to eat confectionery,
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Kate Atkinson |
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dab4976
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white lilies, the kind you would give to a bride or a corpse.
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Kate Atkinson |
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f3fff75
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And then suddenly she was on her feet, her heart knocking in her chest, a sudden familiar but long-forgotten terror triggered- but by what?
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Kate Atkinson |
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0c7901d
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but how could you spoil a child--by neglect, yes, but not by love. You had to give them all the love you could, even though giving that much love could cause you pain and anguish and horror and, in the end, love could destroy you.
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Kate Atkinson |
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4829f2a
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This was beauty too. Was there anything in nature that wasn't?
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Kate Atkinson |
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97a0158
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disengaging from the rat race Jackson
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Kate Atkinson |
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a2614d3
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the dogs had got into the graveyard and were now moving like Hoovers across the ground, their noses down, their tails up, their small dog brains consumed with the idea of uncharted territory and a thousand new scents.
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Kate Atkinson |
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e1db007
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Look at the Germans, the most cultured and well mannered of people, and yet... Auschwitz, Treblinka, Bergen-Belsen. Given the same set of circumstances it could just as well have been the English,
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Kate Atkinson |
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624df91
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I always thought the girl in that picture had the look of a frog about her," Nancy said, thinking, I look enigmatic because I'm dying. "Isn't"
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Kate Atkinson |
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292e660
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Sylvie's children really only came into focus for her when in isolation. Together, they were an unwieldy flock, singly they had character.
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Kate Atkinson |
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667f04a
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All that is necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good women to do nothing. The
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Kate Atkinson |
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c3c9b98
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Sometimes it takes just one good man, Ursula said to him during the war. Neither of them could think of an example from history, "except the Buddha perhaps," Ursula offered. "I'm not convinced by the reality of Christ." There were plenty of instances where it had taken just one bad man, Teddy said gloomily." --
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Kate Atkinson |
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4725329
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Secrets had the power to kill a marriage
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Kate Atkinson |
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10227d7
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Sometimes it takes just one good man
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Kate Atkinson |
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66c2a29
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Teddy thought of his wife and his sister as two sides of the same shining coin. Nancy was an idealist, Ursula a realist; Nancy an optimist with a lively heart, while Ursula's spirit was freighted with the grief of history. Ursula was forever cast out of Eden and making the best of it while Nancy, cheerful and undaunted, was sure her search for the gate back into the garden would be successful.
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Kate Atkinson |
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bcd8c37
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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.
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war
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Kate Atkinson |
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163b41e
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he said that when the baby was born, if it was a boy, I was to call it Edward." "Edward?" Teddy repeated blankly. "After you." And for the first time in the whole of the war Teddy broke."
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Kate Atkinson |
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e703543
|
Oh, man, 'the nursery,' " Dominic said, "what a hell-hole. If I had kids I'd give them the nicest room in the house." "You do have kids," his kid said. "Oh, yeah, well, right, you know what I mean."
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Kate Atkinson |
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ef1eb25
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Much good may "honour" do them when they're dead"
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Kate Atkinson |
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e613caf
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'The mistake,' Sylvie said, 'is thinking that love equates with happiness.')
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Kate Atkinson |
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ecc5a3b
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But appearance and reality were different things, weren't they?
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Kate Atkinson |
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065a70e
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Ursula craved solitude but she hated loneliness... At work, they regarded her as a person apart... They imagined there must be more to her. A dark horse. And still waters run deep. They would be disappointed to know that even cliches were more interesting than the life she lived.
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Kate Atkinson |
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5fb59c8
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Mita ovat todelliset rikokset? Kapitalismi, uskonto, seksi? Murha - yleensa mutta ei valttamatta. Varkaus - samoin. Mutta julmuus ja valinpitamattomyys ovat myos rikoksia. Samoin huonot tavat ja tunteettomuus. Mutta pahinta on valinpitamattomyys.
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Kate Atkinson |
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fc5f3ab
|
The triumph of the human spirit," the new nursing sister said, new enough to talk about "positive outcomes" and "enhancement programmes"--emollient management-speak, meaningless to most of the residents of Poplar Hill, who were either dying or demented or both. It was called a "care home" but there was precious little of either to be had when you were run by a profit-based health-care provider employing minimum-wage staff."
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Kate Atkinson |
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33be831
|
The Germans were victims of the Nazis too, but one can't say that too loudly, of course.
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Kate Atkinson |
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6b5bcf6
|
Sacrifice,' " he remembered Sylvie saying, "is a word that makes people feel noble about slaughter." "These"
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Kate Atkinson |
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8fbb6fa
|
Untouched by morning and untouched by noon, sleep the meek members of the Resurrection, rafter of satin and roof of stone.' Emily Dickinson.
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Kate Atkinson |
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538940b
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The only way to stop the tears was to keep drinking the whisky.
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Kate Atkinson |
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eb913c7
|
And then. Astonishing. Again. As she was skipping up the back stairs on her way to the attic bedroom to fetch something, something innocent - a book, a handkerchief, afterwards she would never remember what - she was almost sent flying by Howie on his way down. 'I was looking for a bathroom,' he said. 'Well, we only have one,' Ursula said, 'and it's not up these-' but before the sentence was finished she found herself pinned awkwardly again..
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Kate Atkinson |
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211d3cd
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common language was a wonderful idea, but utterly utopian. All good ideas were, she said sadly.
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Kate Atkinson |
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b532531
|
Nostalgia is predicated on something that never existed.
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Kate Atkinson |
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4a35a52
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she was just like everyone else, she wanted to love someone. Even better if they loved you in return.
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Kate Atkinson |
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91f9acd
|
Barrage balloons dotted the sky like blind whales bobbing around in the wrong element.
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Kate Atkinson |
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bfae7e0
|
It was war itself that was evil, not men.
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Kate Atkinson |
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8037c13
|
Discretion being the better part of valour,
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Kate Atkinson |
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2ff0238
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He didn't make plans himself any more. There was now and it was followed by another now. If you were lucky.
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Kate Atkinson |
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5b4fb70
|
They had been too taken up with each other, grasshoppers enjoying the summer, rather than ants preparing for the winter.
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Kate Atkinson |
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3638df6
|
The dead were legion and the gods had their own secret agenda.
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Kate Atkinson |
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de8a20d
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A fool too late bewares when all the peril is past.
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Kate Atkinson |
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5d3fe3a
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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.
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Kate Atkinson |
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960d294
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War did indeed make strange bedfellows of people.
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Kate Atkinson |
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13d9952
|
a common language was a wonderful idea, but utterly utopian. All good ideas were, she said sadly. Ursula
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Kate Atkinson |
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e7488db
|
That was the problem with time travel, of course (apart from the impossibility) - one would always be a Cassandra, spreading doom with one's foreknowledge of events. It was quite wearyingly relentless but the only way that one could go was forward. She
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Kate Atkinson |