Quotes by Sara Sheridan

“People make interesting assumptions about the profession. The writer is a mysterious figure, wandering lonely as a cloud, fired by inspiration, or perhaps a cocktail or two.”

“Books have a vital place in our culture. They are the source of ideas, of stories that engage and stretch the imagination and most importantly, inspire.”

“When you think about the period in which Agatha Christie's crime novels were written, they are actually quite edgy for the time.”

“I decided to coin the term 'cosy crime noir' for Brighton Belle. That is 'cosy crime' for today's sensibilities because there is that slightly edgy element to it.”

“I have a really vivid imagination and I find it difficult to read scenes of complete graphic violence. That's not to say that graphic violence does not exist. It's just that I find it quite harrowi...”

“You spill a lot of beans in historical fiction. Crime fiction is about spilling no beans at all. You spill the least beans you possibly can. So because I had already written historical fiction befo...”

“Archive material is vital to the writer of historical fiction.”

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

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

“I'm accustomed to reading Georgian and Victorian letters and sometimes you simply know in your gut that a blithe sentence is covering up a deeper emotion.”

“There was something indomitable about Maria like Britannia. Hed heard that she kept her head during a Chilean earthquake the year before when men of greater age and experience had panicked. Afterw...”

“You cant trust anyone you have to pay, and really, they cant trust you.”

“Nothing is long ago in an archive, my dear. In the records we treat the dead as same as the living.thats the whole point of keeping papers. It doesnt matter if its a hundred years or only a few wee...”

“Didnt young people care what the generation before them had achieved? And if not, why had everyone gone through those grim difficult wartime years?”

“It was nearly ten years since the peace though her memories of the war still felt fresh.”

“I'm in my 40s and I'm constantly surprised by how much my childhood still plays a part in my life.”

“That boy is talented. You dont develop those gifts in houses or in schools.”

“Those who have not been stung will hardly fear a bee the same as those who have.”

“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 wasnt true.”

“The lively oral storytelling scene in Scots and Gaelic spills over into the majority English-speaking culture, imbuing it with a strong sense of narrative drive that is essential to the modern nove...”