Transcription Kate Atkinson Quotes

Do not equate nationalism with patriotism... Nationalism is the first step on the road to Fascism.

Choice, it seemed, was one of the first casualties of war.

The future was coming nearer, one relentless goose step after the next. Juliet could still remember when Hitler had seemed like a harmless clown. No one was amused now. (“The clowns are the dangerous ones,” Perry said.)

[…] but her mother's death had revealed that there was no metaphor too ostentatious for grief. It was a terrible thing and demanded embellishment.

Why was it that the females of the species were always the ones left to tidy up, she wondered? I expect Jesus came out of the tomb...and said to his mother, "Can you tidy it up a bit back there?

The blame generally has to fall somewhere, Miss Armstrong. Women and the Jews tend to be first in line, unfortunately.

Human nature favors the tribal. Tribalism engenders violence. It was ever thus and so it will ever be.

People always said they wanted the truth, but really they were perfectly content with a facsimile.

...it had probably been a long enough life. Yet suddenly it all seemed like an illusion, a dream that had happened to someone else. What an odd thing existence was.

Juliet felt slighted yet relieved. It was curious how you could hold two quite opposing feelings at the same time, an unsettling emotional discord. She felt an odd pang at the sight of him. She had been fond of him. She had been his girl. Reader, I didn’t marry him, she thought.

Perhaps sex was something you had to learn and then stick at until you were good at it, like hockey or the piano. But an initial lesson would be helpful.

Juliet and Hartley had long ago abandoned manners with each other. It was refreshing to behave without respect towards someone.

Being flippant was harder work than being earnest

It was like dealing with Rasputin, not a middle-aged woman from Wolverhampton.

Juliet sighed and wondered if one day she would think herself to death. Was that possible? And would it be painful?

Our own homegrown evil, I’m sorry to say. And instead of rooting them out, the plan is to let them flourish—but within a walled garden from which they cannot escape and spread their evil seed.” A girl could die of old age following a metaphor like this, Juliet thought. “Very nicely put, sir,” she said.

The war had been a tide that had receded and now here it was lapping around her ankles again.

She would be happy -- but not excessively so....

Giselle would rouse herself from her torpor occasionally (she moved like a particularly lazy cat) in order to despise something.

not so much an agent provocateur as an agent passif, if such a thing could be said to exist. (“Sometimes,” Perry said, “saying nothing can be your strongest weapon.”)

but her mother’s death had revealed that there was no metaphor too ostentatious for grief. It was a terrible thing and demanded embellishment.

She didn’t feel she had the fortitude for all those Tudors, they were so relentlessly busy – all that bedding and beheading.

Don't let your imagination run away with you, Miss Armstrong. But why would you not when the reality was so awful? And that was that. Juliet's war.

It was the war, Juliet thought, remembering the photograph of the flamingo’s creased wife, it has made refugees of us all.

Her éducation sexuelle (it was easier to think of it as something French) was woefully riddled with lacunae.

hooligan posse of gulls wheeled noisily overhead,

Don’t seek out elaborate metaphors,” her English teacher had said of her school essays, but her mother’s death had revealed that there was no metaphor too ostentatious for grief. It was a terrible thing and demanded embellishment.

She fingered the strand of pearls at her neck. Inside each pearl was a little piece of grit. That was the true self of the pearl wasn't it? The beauty of the pearl was just the poor oyster trying to protect itself. From the grit. From the truth.

He was the perfect gentleman and, unlike the salesmen in the Fitzrovia hotel, there were no attempts at fumbling—in fact they often performed an awkward little dance around their small office to avoid touching at all, as if Juliet were a desk or a chair, not a girl in her prime. It seemed that she had acquired all the drawbacks of being a mistress and none of the advantages—like sex. (She was becoming bolder with the word, if not the act.) For Perry, it seemed to be the other way round—he had all the advantages of having a mistress and none of the drawbacks. Like sex.

The brooding landscape they were currently traversing, the lowering sky above their heads and the rugged terrain beneath their feet, were all conspiring to make her feel like an unfortunate Brontë sister, traipsing endlessly across the moors after unobtainable fulfillment. Perry himself was not entirely without Heathcliffian qualities—the absence of levity, the ruthless disregard for a girl’s comfort, the way he had of scrutinizing you as if you were a puzzle to be solved. Would he solve her? Perhaps she wasn’t complicated enough for him. (On the other hand, perhaps she was too complicated.)

As the first clod of earth hit her mother’s coffin, Juliet could barely catch a breath. Her mother would suffocate beneath all that earth, she thought, but Juliet was suffocating too. An image came to her mind—the martyrs who were pressed to death by stones piled on top of them. That is me, she thought, I am crushed by loss. “Don’t seek out elaborate metaphors,” her English teacher had said of her school essays, but her mother’s death had revealed that there was no metaphor too ostentatious for grief. It was a terrible thing and demanded embellishment.

It seemed an odd coincidence, but then that was the nature of coincidence, Juliet supposed--it always seemed odd.

he had a name, too - a good patriotic name. cry god for harry, england, and saint george.

Courage is the watchword Miss Armstrong.

i will be the hunter, not the hunted. diana, not the stag. the arrow, not the bow.

Lying on the pavement of Wigmore Street with concerned bystanders all around, she knew there was no way out from this. She was just sixty years old, although it had probably been a long enough life. Yet suddenly it all seemed like an illusion, a dream that had happened to someone else. What an odd thing existence was.

Donna Leon. But she also liked history, so I handed over Jacqueline Winspear and John Banville. A little questioning changed the trajectory. I extolled Kate Atkinson and P. D. James, suggested Transcription. She mentioned liking Children of Men. I mentioned The Handmaid’s Tale, which of course she had already read, then I catapulted over to my most special lady, Octavia Butler. One of my all-time favorite characters is bitter, angry, tender Lilith, who has lots of transcendent

When Juliet woke she sensed something had changed. She could hear a milk float clanking along the street and the noises off of bus engines and car horns, and the usual passing footfall, but everything sounded deadened and muffled. Snow?, she wondered. But when she looked out of the window it was to find not snow but an unseasonable fog that had descended in the night. That's all I need, Juliet thought. Atmosphere.

Survival trumped memory.

Her mother was still more of a presence than an absence in her life. Juliet supposed that one day in the future it would be the other way round, but she doubted that would be an improvement.

This customer liked the mystery writer Louise Penny, so I gushed about Donna Leon. But she also liked history, so I handed over Jacqueline Winspear and John Banville. A little questioning changed the trajectory. I extolled Kate Atkinson and P. D. James, suggested Transcription. She mentioned liking Children of Men. I

This was how people disappeared from history, wasn't it? They weren't erased, they were explained away.

It was as if a complicated game of chess was being played, but Juliet didn't know all the rules or where anyone else was on the board. She was clearly intended to be a pawn in this game. But I am a queen, she thought. Able to move in any direction.

If he turned round suddenly and caught her—like a game of statues—she could say she was going to Harrods.

He turned to look at the dog and said, “Oh, it’s not mine. I thought you could perhaps do me the favor of looking after it for a short while.

I think we should make sure that we are singing from the same hymn sheet, as it were.

(What was an actuary? Juliet wondered. It sounded as if it belonged in a zoo, along with a cassowary and a dromedary.)

She was the deer. She was the arrow, She was the queen. She was the contradiction, She was the synthesis. Juliet ran.

Don’t let your imagination run away with you...” But why would you not when the reality was so awful?

The war was a clumsily stitched

Why was it that the females of the species were always the ones left to tidy up? she wondered. I expect Jesus came out of the tomb, Juliet thought, and said to his mother, “Can you tidy it up a bit back there?

Why not?” Mrs. Scaife said, navigating her way back to the sofa and dropping anchor (“Ouf”) on the salmon damask.

He had a wonderful way of drawing them out with his placid responses (Hm? And Yes, yes and I see), not so much an agent provocateur as an agent passif, if such a thing could be said t exist.

No one was amused now. (‘The clowns are the dangerous ones,’ Perry said.)

It had been a while since Juliet had shared her bed with anyone. There had been a few, but she thought of them as mistakes rather than lovers,

I need to talk to you.” “People always say that,” Hartley said grimly, “but usually what they need is not to talk.

But wasn’t artistic endeavor the final refuge of the uncommitted?

And together they had committed a hideous act, the kind of thing that binds you to someone forever, whether you like it or not.

You have an eye,” Miss Gillies told her. I have two, she thought.)

he had a firm voice, a nice low register that spoke of both kindness and unassailable authority, which seemed the perfect combination in a man—in the romance novels her mother had been fond of, anyway

The wounds of war, Juliet thought, rather pleased with the way the words sounded in her head. It could be the title of a novel. Perhaps she should write one. But wasn’t artistic endeavor the final refuge of the uncommitted?

The beauty of the pearl was just the poor oyster trying to protect itself from the grit. From the truth...

This Temple of the Arts and Muses is dedicated to Almighty God by the first Governors of Broadcasting in the year 1931, Sir John Reith being Director General. It is their prayer that good seed sown may bring forth a good harvest, that all things hostile to peace or purity may be banished from this house, and that the people, inclining their ear to whatsoever things are beautiful and honest and of good report, may tread the path of wisdom and uprightness.

(“Sometimes,” Perry said, “saying nothing can be your strongest weapon.”) Juliet, and perhaps Juliet alone, had begun to sense Godfrey’s impatience. She had learned to read between the lines. But wasn’t that where the most important things were said?

Juliet could still remember when Hitler had seemed like a harmless clown. No one was amused now. (“The clowns are the dangerous ones,” Perry said.)

her. It was a cruel thing, trying to sprout and find the light of day. It was truth. She wasn’t sure that she wanted it.

Each reported on a myriad others, filaments in an evangelistic web of treachery that stretched across the country.

Apart from the noose.

But then, what constituted real? Wasn’t everything, even this life itself, just a game of deception?