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Julia's vocabulary was chock-full of strangely archaic words - spiffing, crumbs, jeepers - that seemed to have originated in some prewar girls' annual rather than in Julia's own life. For Jackson, words were functional, they helped you get to places and explain things. For Julia, they were freighted with inexplicable emotion.

Kate Atkinson

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Kate Atkinson
Age: 72
Born: 1951
Born: December 20
Journalist
Novelist
Playwright
Screenwriter
Short Story Writer
Writer
Jórvík
Life
Girls
Julia
Freighted
Places
Strangely
Chock
Emotion
Inexplicable
Archaic
Full
Jackson
Originated
Rather
Vocabulary
Crumbs
Words
Helped
Annuals
Girl
Explain
Annual
Things
Seemed
Functional

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The great thing about writing compared to life is getting to tie things up.
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Love was the hardest thing. Don't let anyone ever tell you different.
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Men had no purpose on earth whereas women were gods walking unrecognized among them.
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I think about death a lot, I really do, because I can't believe I won't exist. It's the ego isn't it? I feel that I should retreat into a better form of Zen Buddhism than this kind of ego-dominated thing. But I don't know, I mean, I want to come back as a tree but I suspect that it's just not going to happen, is it?
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Not being published would be great. When I say that to other writers they look at me as if I'm totally insane.
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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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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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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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The past is what you take with you.
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When you chopped logs with the ax and they split open they smelled beautiful, like Christmas. But when you split someone's head open it smelled like abattoir and quite overpowered the scent of the wild lilacs you'd cut and brought into the house only this morning, which was already another life.
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Alternate history fascinates me, as it fascinates all novelists, because 'What if?' is the big thing.
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You can step in the same river but the water will always be new.
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Probably not needing to be published would give me more time to think about a book.
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I'm a lapsed Quaker. I don't go to meetings any more. But I'm very drawn to Catholicism - all that glitter. I'd love to be a Catholic. I think it would be fantastic - faith, forgiveness, absolution, extreme unction - all these wonderful words. I don't think anyone who was ever born a Catholic hasn't died a Catholic, no matter how lapsed they are.
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Sometimes,' Sylvie said, 'one can mistake gratitude for love.
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She doesn't believe in dogs, Bridget said. Dogs are hardly an article of faith, Sylvie said.
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Fairy tales opened up a door into my imagination - they don't conform to the reality that's around you as a child. I started reading when I was three and read everything, but I wanted to be an actress.
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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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Feminism is such an incredibly awkward word for us these days, isnt it? Not to be feminist would be bizarre, wouldnt it?
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Oh, God. What was happening to her, she was turning into a normal person.
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