Kate Atkinson Quotes

At 18, my first short story was published - I was paid a penny a word by a science fiction magazine. I continued to write, and five years later I published my first novel, 'Sweetwater.'

The first time my friends saw me in a magazine I was so excited.

I haven't had an orthodox career, and I've wanted more than anything to have your respect. The first time I didn't feel it, but this time I feel it, and I can't deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!

My father usually does not talk to me about my films, and it was a pleasant moment when he appreciated me the first time.

At one point, I had a story accepted at the 'New Yorker,' which sent off weird bells in people when I told them - 'Oh,' they thought, 'now you are a writer' - where I really had been for the last 30-odd years.

I think my first story sold for $550. This was in 1954, and it seemed like quite a lot of money, and I said to myself, 'Hey, I'm a professional writer now.'

There is no magic in all the world like that magic when you sell your first bit of writing.

I never imagined when I began writing in the early 1960s I'd become professional and my life would be transformed.

I kept wanting to push my image as validity; I wanted to see my portrait on a wall and know it was okay.

Probably one of the happiest moments, outside the birth of all of my kids, was the first time we won an Emmy, that the show won an Emmy. That was a big night.

For several days after my first book was published, I carried it about in my pocket and took surreptitious peeps at it to make sure the ink had not faded.

Up until my first book was published, I had all this potential, people would say, and I screwed up. After it, I could say: 'No, I didn't screw up.'

As a young poet, you need corroboration, and that's what publication does.

The first time I ever heard professional actors delivering lines that I wrote was completely surreal and was just a gigantic moment in my life. It was just a little bit mind-blowing and completely strange to have something that had been on my computer being said out loud.

It's my whole life of being the little guy and having a little chip on my shoulder, from year to year trying to prove myself, and at the end of the day to be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame is a very special honor for me.

I completed my first novel when I was 19 years old.

I once stood in the middle of New York city watching my name go round the electronic zipper sign in Times Square and I felt pretty thrilled, but not quite as thrilled as I felt when I saw my name in the 'Examiner' for the first time.

I am a writer and always was; being a writer is an integral part of my identity. Being published, being well regarded, is a component of that identity.

Publication in 'The New Yorker' meant everything, and it's no exaggeration to say that it changed my life.

I had been writing poems and stories since I learned to make letters. I had placed poems in a hardcover anthology at the age of 6. And I knew more big words than anyone else in the 10th grade.

When I got recognized as a writer, when I got the Emmy, I was more excited than the Emmys I had gotten as an actor.

To be publishing Stephen King, to be a friend to Stephen, when he is absolutely what got me into this business, is a really neat thing and something I don't take for granted.

I wrote a novel in my early twenties; I won a high school prize - my short story got published, and I got 50 dollars, which was a huge deal.

The first time I was nominated for an award for professional acting, I was in my mid-twenties. I was married and the mother of my first two daughters. I had been working for near to 15 years.

Generally speaking, I, like anyone else who does anything publicly, like it when people like what I do, and would like to hear as much.