Sara Sheridan famous quotes

Researching books gets you into nothing but trouble.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Book #Trouble

Everyone assumes writers spend their time lounging around, writing and occasionally striking a pose whilst having a think.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Writing #Thinking #Assuming

Writers need each other.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Writing #Needs

The new contract between writers and readers is one I'm prepared to sign up to. I've met some fascinating people at events and online. Down with the isolation of writers I say! And long live Twitter.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Writing #Long #People

I always thought that bagels and lox was my soul food, but it turns out it's sushi.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Soul #Sushi #Bagels

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

#Fields #Expertise

Change occurs slowly. Very often a legal change might take place but the cultural shift required to really accept its spirit lingers in the wings for decades.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Wings #Might #Spirit

Grabbing readers by the imagination is a writer's job.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Jobs #Imagination #Reader

At length, when I considered it, I realized that the best of my actions were small things. Picking flowers and cooking food for my mother when she had been unwell, spending an afternoon with the children, sending money to my sister or kissing Henry's tiny head as he slept in the nursery before I left. I thought of every detail and afterwards I felt better. Hellfire and brimstone have never appealed to me and I admit I become easily confused thinking of right and wrong. But I do understand kindness.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Mother #Children #Kindness

She wishes her grandmother had not been so protective, and that she understood better what passes between a man and woman. As it is, she simply enjoys the feelings and wonders if they are what lightning is made of, for everything comes back to the weather. Tears like rain. Smiles like the sun. Hair as dry as sand and fear like the dark ocean.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Rain #Ocean #Grandmother

I find it inspiring to actively choose which traditions to celebrate and also come up with new ideas for traditions of my own.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Healing #Ideas #Tradition

It is through our extended family that we first learn to compromise and come to an understanding that even if we don't always agree about things we can still love and look out for each other.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Understanding #Firsts #Looks

For me, writing stories set, well, wherever they're best set, is a form of cultural curiosity that is uniquely Scottish - we're famous for travelling in search of adventure.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Adventure #Writing #Curiosity

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.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Father #Home #Treasure

Copywriters, journalists, mainstream authors, ghostwriters, bloggers and advertising creatives have as much right to think of themselves as good writers as academics, poets, or literary novelists.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Writing #Thinking #Novelists

The net has provided a level playing field for criticism and comment - anyone and everyone is entitled to their opinion - and that is one of its greatest strengths.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Criticism #Level Playing Field #Levels

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?
-- Sara Sheridan

#Mother #Balance #Restriction

Scotland consistently produces world-class writers.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Class #Scotland #World

Something I notice speaking to writers from south of Hadrians Wall is that the culture is different. At base, I think Scotland values its creative industries differently from England.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Wall #Thinking #Scotland

Scotland just isn't terribly Tory.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Scotland

The law don't like jazz clubs. No one wants anything to do with that kind of trouble.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Law #Clubs #Want

History at its best is a gritty, dirty business.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Dirty

Those who have not been stung will hardly fear a bee the same as those who have.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Bees

Aunts offer kids an opportunity to try out ideas that don't chime with their parents and they also demonstrate that people can get on, love each other and live together without necessarily being carbon copies.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Kids #Aunt #Opportunity

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

#Mother #Writing #Generations

Historical fiction of course is particularly research-heavy. The details of everyday life are there to trip you up. Things that we take for granted, indeed, hardly think about, can lead to tremendous mistakes.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Mistake #Thinking #Historical

Research material can turn up anywhere - in a dusty old letter in an archive, a journal or some old photographs you find in a charity shop.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Research #Charity #Letters

I jealously guard my research time and I love fully immersing myself in those dusty old books and papers. It's one of the most enjoyable parts of my job.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Jobs #Book #Research

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

#People #The End Of The Day #Different

The sky was a sparkling succession of black diamonds on black velvet made crystal clear by the blackout.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Sky #Black #Velvet

Without archives many stories of real people would be lost, and along with those stories, vital clues that allow us to reflect and interpret our lives today.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Real #People #Archives

Writers of novels live in a strange world where what's made up is as important as what's real.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Real #Important #World

I'm a library user and I just don't hoard books. To me, they're for sharing.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Book #Library #Users

For a novelist, the gaps in a story are as intriguing as material that still exists.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Stories #Gaps #Novelists

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

#Space #Stories #Blank Space

I didn't expect to love being online as much as I do. I've met some wonderful people and discovered that however arcane some of my interests that there are people out there who are interested too.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Love Is #People #Wonderful

Today women have the rights and equality our Victorian sisters could only dream of, and with those privileges comes the responsibility of standing up and being counted.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Dream #Responsibility #Rights

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.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Lonely #Inspiration #Two

I believe the era of the militant lady is back.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Believe #Eras #I Believe

I don't choose between my house phone and my mobile. I don't choose between my laptop and my notebook. And I don't intend to choose between my e-reader and my bookshelf.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Notebook #Phones #House

I had never really understood what an adventure life could be, if you followed your heart and did what you really wanted to do, which is what we must all do in the end.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Adventure #Heart #Ends

While I'm frustrated at the amount I'm expected to take on in the present, the 1950s woman was frustrated by being excluded - not being allowed to take things on at all.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Frustrated #Expected

To me, reading through old letters and journals is like treasure hunting. Somewhere in those faded, handwritten lines there is a story that has been packed away in a dusty old box for years.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Reading #Hunting #Years

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

#Children #Aunt #Safe Haven

Books exist for me not as physical entities with pages and binding, but in the province of my mind.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Book #Mind #Pages

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.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Girl #Character #Writing

I've found myself moved by letters and diaries in archives as well as trashy, summer blockbusters. It's possible to make a connection with any kind of writing - as long as the writing is good.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Summer #Writing #Long

There is something particularly fascinating about seeing places you know in a piece of art - be that in a film, or a photograph, or a painting.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Art #Pieces #Painting

As an historical novelist – there are few jobs more retrospective.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Jobs #Historical #Novelists

Sometimes I create a character from a scrap - a mere mention that has been left behind.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Character #Sometimes #Left Behind

A book is a story, even if it's non-fiction, and once I've read it, I have the story with me inside my head always.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Book #Fiction #Stories

It is one of the benchmarks of a culture I always think – the page at which it operates. A good way to measure it is to order a taxi and see how irate local people get if it is late.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Thinking #Order #People

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.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Book #Ideas #Imagination

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

#Character #Vocabulary #Interesting

If we don't value the people who inspire us (and money is one mark of that) then what kind of culture are we building?
-- Sara Sheridan

#People #Inspire #Culture

Very often the characters people respond to best have little parts of reality they can relate to.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Character #Reality #People

My father could talk about the Romany way of life and its culture. He could talk about freedom and the Scottish spirit. But that was all he could talk about. I was desperate for someone to talk to but there was just nobody there.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Father #Culture #Way

Often we don't notice the stringent rules to which our culture subjects us.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Culture #Subjects

Writers are a product of where we come from but by looking at alternatives to the culture in which we live, we can find ways to change and hopefully improve it.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Alternatives #Way #Where We Come

It may take a village to raise a baby, but hell! it takes an army to produce a book.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Baby #Book #Army

I care about a lot of issues. I care about libraries, I care about healthcare, I care about homelessness and unemployment. I care about net neutrality and the steady erosion of our liberties both online and off. I care about the rich/poor divide and the rise of corporate business.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Issues #Erosion #Liberty

I had loved poetry and the theatre. Now I loved adventure more.
-- Sara Sheridan

#Adventure #Theatre