So much for progress. How quickly civilization could dissolve into its more ugly elements.

— Kate Atkinson

Teddy shuddered. The idea of the sublime little bird being plucked from the sky, of its exquisite song being interrupted in full flight, was horrible to him.

— Kate Atkinson

The clock had been Sylvie's, and her mother's before that. It had gone to Ursula on Sylvie's death and Ursula had left it to Teddy, and so it had zigzagged its way down the family tree...... The clock was a good one, made by Fordham and worth quite a bit, but Teddy knew if he gave it to Viola she would sell it or misplace it or break it, and it seemed important to him that it stayed in the family. An heirloom. ('Lovely word,' Bertie said.) He liked to think that the little golden key that wound it, a key that would almost certainly be lost by Viola, would continue to be turned by the hand of someone who was part of the family, part of his blood. The red thread.

— Kate Atkinson

The mind is a fathomless mystery.

— Kate Atkinson

The only time you were safe was when you were dead.

— Kate 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

The past is what you take with you.

— Kate Atkinson

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.

— Kate Atkinson

They were lucky. They'd been given history.

— Kate Atkinson

This Henry lived in Edinburgh, making him inaccessible and giving her something to do on the weekends — 'Oh, just flying up to Scotland, Henry's taking me fishing,' which is the kind of thing she imagined people doing in Scotland — she always thought of the Queen Mother, incongruous in slicker and waders, standing in the middle of a shallow brown river (somewhere on the outskirts of Brigadoon, no doubt) and casting a line for trout.

— Kate Atkinson