Sara Sheridan Quotes - Page 4

His heart is pounding and when he kisses her it is as if the whole of Riyadh disappears – the wide sky, the hard surface of the roof, the date palms and the water wells.

As a historical novelist, there are few jobs more retrospective.

An aunt is a safe haven for a child. Someone who will keep your secrets and is always on your side.

As a historical novelist, there is very little I like more than spending time sorting through boxes of old letters, diaries, maps, trinkets, and baubles.

I've been obsessed with stories since I was a kid so it's no surprise that I ended up writing for a living.

Such a night cannot be shaken from a woman’s memory. Such a night changes your life forever.

During the war some of the country’s sharpest minds had looked as if they had been dragged through a hedge backwards.

Once they have dedicated themselves to a cause, women will fight to the end for it.

I'm not sure how much easier it is for a mother to balance her life now - have we simply swapped one set of restrictions for another?

One of Scotland's most important cultural exports - stories.

Sometimes you don’t even have to have sex at all, and for that kind of sicko, you charge double.

That boy is talented. You don’t develop those gifts in houses or in schools.

He often came back ‘all thinky’ from work.

At the end of the day, that's what a family is - a group of different people who accept each other.

Mirabelle sat down, dropping into the cushions like a ball being caught in a large leather glove.

I've always felt that good writing does not have to be literary.

History is full of blank spaces, but good stories, invariably, are not.

I believe the era of the militant lady is back.

I've always had a keen sense of history. My father was an antiques dealer and he used to bring home boxes full of treasures, and each item always had a tale attached.

I have no problem in moving a date one way or another or coming up with a subplot that gets my characters in (or out) of a fix more rambunctiously than the extant records show.

As a novelist it is my job to tell stories that inspire and entertain but I am increasingly mindful that many of these historical tales (which of themselves are fascinating) relate directly to our issues in society today.

Communism,” I observed, “is a pile of wank.

The smog curled between the streetlamps and the spokes of the wrought iron framework. It seemed through your body and into your bones.

When you're depressed you retreat and you go into a smaller world. This is why Brighton worked well for the story, because it's a smaller world than London.

The best historical stories capture the modern imagination because they are, in many senses, still current - part of a continuum.

I've always been attracted to stories about rebels - things that are unusual and sometimes dangerous.

He tasted of whisky and his skin was rough where he hadn’t shaved, but Mirabelle kissed him back.

She tried to focus on the element of riddle or at least puzzle contained in the letter and ignore the sense of doom that was sweeping through her like clouds rolling to the shore over open water.

History was my favourite subject at school and in my spare time I read historical novels voraciously from Heidi to the Scarlet Pimpernel and from Georgette Heyer to Agatha Christie.

It seemed to me that these months of watching and listening, second-guessing words and phrases, seeking so much that was new, had somehow changed me.

I'd never be where I am if more successful writers hadn't taken an interest in me and done me a good turn.

We can learn so much looking outside our core field of expertise.

It was as if she was a dream, like London, which he could not entirely grasp and of which he was not worthy. He wanted to be part of it but had forgotten how. It seemed extraordinary and strange that this paragon among women had condescended to travel on his ship. In fact, she’d insisted upon it. Her presence was at once otherworldly and familiar, none of which explained why his brain ceased to function when he was in her company.

It's entirely possible to base an entire book on a long-forgotten letter.

There are as many different kinds of books as there are writers - as many different responses as there are readers.

Jack had been the love of her life and he was gone. It seemed now that there had never been bad times, though she knew that wasn’t true.

Wellsted will remember this moment for the rest of his life. It is the first time he desires something for himself that is not dedicated to his own advancement. It is the moment he falls in love.

Researching books gets you into nothing but trouble.

When you want something badly enough it’s amazing what you’ll ignore.

Kissing her is like drinking salted water, he thinks. His thirst only increases.

You have no future when the past rules you.

The financial value put on the job of the writer and the misconceptions around that make it extremely difficult to enter the profession.

I remember calling the council's cemetery department to ask about body decomposition in different soil types. Once they had verified that I was a novelist and not a sicko, they were extremely helpful.

Afternoon drinkers shifted in the gloom as if they sensed new blood.

When the first book out my sister-in-law read it and we were chatting at 5 o'clock in the afternoon and she said, "Oh my God, chapter six, sex and a murder," and her five year old wandered into the kitchen and said, "Sixty hamburgers?

Mrs Beaumont shrugged. ‘Dougie travelled light in life,’ she said. ‘He knew it was people who were important.

Escapers were the cream of the crop.

Like most little girls, I found the lure of grown-up accessories astonishing - lipstick, perfume, hats and gloves. When I write female characters in my historical novels, getting these details right is vital.

A word out of place or an interesting choice of vocabulary can spawn a whole character.

They should be taking bonuses from bankers, not library books from schoolchildren. What kind of society are we building?

Writing about the 1950s has given me tremendous respect for my mother's generation.

Like good reading skills, good writing skills require immersion and imaginative engagement.

In wartime people took action because of what they believed in. In peacetime people were driven by their private concerns.

As a reader you recognise that feeling when you're lost in a book? You know the one - when whatever's going on around you seems less real than what you're reading and all you want to do is keep going deeper into the story whether it's about being halfway up a mountain in Brazil in 1823 of in love with a man you aren't sure you can trust or fighting a war in the last human outpost, somewhere beyond the moon. Well, if you're writing that book it's real for you too.

He noticed that he felt calmer now she was here, still in that grey dress with her dowdy hat, the air around her redolent with orchid oil. Perhaps all women in England had this effect. Perhaps they all smelled of flowers and exuded a calm and measured purpose. He couldn’t remember.

I was asked the other day in which era I would choose to live. As a historical novelist, it comes up sometimes. As a woman I'd have to say I'd like to live in the future - I want to see where these centuries of change are leading us.

For a writer it's a genuinely interesting and hopefully profitable era that makes a variety of books available to a variety of readers, extending both what's available and who gets to read it.

I knew that I was talented. I was positive about that. I wasn’t sure exactly what I was talented at, but I was ambitious enough to wait it out and see what turned up.

The jungle is alive. It’s dangerous as a living nightmare and brimful of hostility.

We are home to each other now.