Briony Tallis

"She had written herself into a corner."

"There was a moment when everything changed, and she could never go back."

"In nursing, there was a kind of penance that suited her."

"She had confused pity with morality."

"She had been playing a part, and had forgotten that it was a part."

"The burden of knowledge was heavier than she had anticipated."

"There was a kind of grace in acceptance."

"She had learned that intention was not the same as outcome."

"In the end, all she had was her own account of things."

"The duty of the writer was to tell the truth, whatever the cost."

"She had been transformed by her own lie."

"She could not undo what had been done, only carry it forward."

"There was no redemption, only the possibility of bearing witness."

"The war had taught her that innocence was something you lost, not gained."

"She wanted to die. It was a kind of lust."

"She had ruined all their lives."

"Perfection in the marshalling of events is the only thing that can atone for the imperfection of life itself."

"To recover them from the corruptions, injuries and oblivions of the transition."

"Solitude became her natural state."

"The guilty conscience knows no rest."

"She had crossed a line from which there could be no return."

"The past cannot be undone, only reimagined."

"She understood now the paradox: that forgiveness too could be a selfish act."

"In the story, I kept things in proportion."

"The problem these fifty-nine years is my attempt to perfect the truth, to achieve through the written word the precision of a moment, to render the every flicker visible."

"Atonement only truly begins with the acknowledgment of wrongdoing."

"She had come to understand that the lie was the beginning of everything."

"Time had made her aware of her own complicity in the unfolding tragedy."

"The written word could perhaps accomplish what the spoken apology could not."

"She understood that innocence, once lost, could never truly be restored."