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Playing on her femininity and making him feel uncomfortable seemed highly effective. -- Sara Sheridan
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
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
What was it that marked me as a woman and was I prepared to let it go? -- Sara Sheridan
Archive material is vital to the writer of historical fiction. -- Sara Sheridan
It was nearly ten years since the peace though her memories of the war still felt fresh. -- Sara Sheridan
Once they have dedicated themselves to a cause, women will fight to the end for it. -- Sara Sheridan
The smog curled between the streetlamps and the spokes of the wrought iron framework. It seemed through your body and into your bones. -- Sara Sheridan
Sometimes you don't even have to have sex at all, and for that kind of sicko, you charge double. -- Sara Sheridan
The Best of Elvis Presley, Doris Day, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bill Hailey and the Comets, Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Frankie Laine all topped the charts in the '50s. Load a playlist of rock n' roll royalty. You're spoilt for choice. -- Sara Sheridan
You couldn't see the soldiers as people. They were icons. -- Sara Sheridan
I realized early on that being an author is a hugely misunderstood job. Because there are no pay grades and very little structure, people make interesting assumptions about the profession. -- Sara Sheridan
I realised early on that being an author is a hugely misunderstood job. -- Sara Sheridan
Britain wouldn't have won the war without its eccentric geniuses. -- Sara Sheridan
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? -- Sara Sheridan
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
Parts of my 20s and 30s have gone by in a flash but my childhood is with me all the time. -- Sara Sheridan
Communism," I observed, "is a pile of wank. -- Sara Sheridan
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
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. -- Sara Sheridan
We can learn so much looking outside our core field of expertise. -- Sara Sheridan
Archive material is a fabulous starting point - individual documents are like signposted roads, heading to a variety of intriguing possibilities. -- Sara Sheridan
The world is changing and you're only just becoming accustomed to it. You're changing, I suppose. You've changed since I've known you.'
'How?'
'You've come more alive. -- Sara Sheridan
Writing historical fiction has many common traits with writing sci-fi or fantasy books. The past is another country - a very different world - and historical readers want to see, smell and touch what it was like living there. -- Sara Sheridan
If peace came it would have to do so when there had been time to allow the hatred to grow out of people's thinking. -- Sara Sheridan
Afternoon drinkers shifted in the gloom as if they sensed new blood. -- Sara Sheridan
I said: 'I'm throwing in my job, and I'm going to write a book.' Everyone thought: 'She's off her trolley,' and it was quite crazy, really. I'm just lucky that it came off. -- Sara Sheridan
I have become very aware how under-represented are the stories of the underprivileged and undervalued. Our records are, in general, very male and if not always the material of the rich, certainly (for obvious reasons) the material of the literate. -- Sara Sheridan
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
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 novel, screenplay and even non-fiction. -- Sara Sheridan
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. -- Sara Sheridan
The mass communications that could enable our politics for good have instead turned it into a bland conglomeration of stinted opinion cloaked in the occasional media frenzy of blame or denial. -- Sara Sheridan
He's more a shape in a drape than a hep cat -- Sara Sheridan
The writing talent of Edinburgh is textured - we have poets, novelists, non-fiction writers, dramatists and more. -- Sara Sheridan
The jungle is alive. It's dangerous as a living nightmare and brimful of hostility. -- Sara Sheridan
I am torn between the freedom of this adventure and the benefits of civilization despite its constraints. -- Sara Sheridan
He finds himself bored by the shenanigans of highly spirited young men. Their concerns reside somewhere between balder and dash. -- Sara Sheridan
If you tempted a poor man with a fortune, who could blame the fellow for taking what he could? -- Sara Sheridan
A journey is an achievement, Maria, just as much as a mathematical proof. -- Sara Sheridan
The bonds between a family are strange indeed. -- Sara Sheridan
They march into the future to the rhythm of the past. -- Sara Sheridan
We're all so digital, but the '50s was the era of watches you had to wind. When Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the summit of Everest in 1953, Hillary was equipped with a Rolex Oyster Perpetual. -- Sara Sheridan
All those kisses. There must have been a thousand. They engulfed me like some kind of all consuming dream where I became very alive and very relaxed at the same time. -- Sara Sheridan
I love writing, and just as much, I love undertaking research. -- Sara Sheridan
It's interesting that, given our culture has so many words that refer to women in a truly derogatory fashion, it's 'lady' - a term that has conferred social respect on our gender for over a thousand years - that has women up in arms. -- Sara Sheridan
Most fellas like the races, though, Miss. It's only human nature -- Sara Sheridan
Reticence was clearly a national characteristic, even if the other person spoke French. -- Sara Sheridan
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. -- Sara Sheridan
Writing is a profession that has no real career structure and your best advice when you hit a difficulty is probably going to come from another writer one or two rungs on the career ladder ahead of you. -- Sara Sheridan
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
I found out pretty quickly that there is a lot of money to be made if you can become the kind of woman who doesn't look like the kind of woman she is. -- Sara Sheridan
There was something unbearable about the damp, dark earth closing over a coffin and the still, empty flesh that was inside. She had attended a hundred funerals, but when you really loved someone there was something too final about a burial. Something brutal. -- Sara Sheridan
When you fake emotion for a living, when you make your money providing fantasies for other people, tuning into their worlds and indulging them, you don't invite someone into your world very easily. -- Sara Sheridan
We are living in glorious days where each readers' voice can be heard. -- Sara Sheridan
A chap wouldn't hole up in Occupied France just to get away from his wife, Vesta. -- Sara Sheridan
So what if she wasn't a pushover? So what if she had some mettle and didn't wear her heart on her sleeve? She had done everything she had done for the best. For king and country. -- Sara Sheridan
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
Sometimes I create a character from a scrap - a mere mention that has been left behind. -- Sara Sheridan
The world loves the 1950s. -- Sara Sheridan
During the war some of the country's sharpest minds had looked as if they had been dragged through a hedge backwards. -- Sara Sheridan
In crime books it's possible to chart forensic technology by how well it has to be explained to a reader. In mid-Victorian crime novels fingerprinting has to be explained because it's new. Nowadays it's part of our world and we can simply assume that knowledge if we write about it. -- Sara Sheridan
The friendship between officers is tarnished by the need for one or another to be promoted. The kindness of a captain is predicated on the obedience and efficiency of his underlings. -- Sara Sheridan
It's not until you're older that you realise how important the things that happened to you when you were a kid are. Even things you only half remember. -- Sara Sheridan
I believe that being able to communicate directly with readers is a boon. I certainly enjoy it as much as they do. -- Sara Sheridan
We have more choice than ever before about where and how we buy and read books. -- Sara Sheridan
The 1950s is a key decade in the 20th Century. Each year has a distinctive flavour. -- Sara Sheridan
The sky was a sparkling succession of black diamonds on black velvet made crystal clear by the blackout. -- Sara Sheridan
He often came back 'all thinky' from work. -- Sara Sheridan
You became the sum total of where you lived, where you shopped, which church you went to, how many kids you had and which taxi company you used, and you only associated with people who had the same responses on their list. -- Sara Sheridan
Books exist for me not as physical entities with pages and binding, but in the province of my mind. -- Sara Sheridan
There were so many wrongs piling up on both sides, so much of the past being dragged into the present, that living there was like carving the story of your life on to a sepulchral monument. -- Sara Sheridan
Edinburgh is a great big black bastard of a city where there are ghosts of all kinds. -- Sara Sheridan
Why, that means you're just a ... busybody. You could be anyone. You could be a journalist.' -- Sara Sheridan
The law don't like jazz clubs. No one wants anything to do with that kind of trouble. -- Sara Sheridan
I hope that, whatever happens within the publishing industry, because of the increased control writers have of their own careers, better sales information and the advent of the internet, that ultimately this change in our working environment will be a change for the better. -- Sara Sheridan
Readership is highly dependent upon format and distribution as much as it is on content. -- Sara Sheridan
One of the great things about the Fifties is there are so many secrets - people who've come back from the war and done these terrible things that they don't want to think about, or can't say what they did because they signed the Official Secrets Act. -- Sara Sheridan
Food in wartime Britain, she had to admit, was hardly inspiring. -- Sara Sheridan
I had loved poetry and the theatre. Now I loved adventure more. -- Sara Sheridan
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. -- Sara Sheridan
People who inspire such contradictory emotions must be worthwhile, I reasoned. -- Sara Sheridan
An aunt is a safe haven for a child. Someone who will keep your secrets and is always on your side. -- Sara Sheridan
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. -- Sara Sheridan
Crime writers, I've noticed, can be jumpy. They live in a world where there are murderers on the loose and they haven't been caught yet! -- Sara Sheridan
There are so many ways to do research - even watching old Ealing comedies, watching people getting on and off buses in London, looking at household interiors. -- Sara Sheridan
Muscat is like a mind-altering drug. A stroll in its streets is like getting drunk for the first time -- Sara Sheridan
She was herself in their company but a very specific version of herself. -- Sara Sheridan
The smell of roasting meat rose from the street stalls in a sizzle and a fiddle player begged for coin as he rasped a haunting melody. Life could not be more perfect. -- Sara Sheridan
The fifties is a decade when every year is markedly different from the one before and after. That doesn't happen every decade. 1983 isn't that much different from 1986. But 1953 is very different from 1956. -- Sara Sheridan
I pride myself on making my own decisions, sir," she said. "I do not welcome gentlemen making them for me. -- Sara Sheridan
Maria didn't fear the sea but, as taught by her father, she respected its power. In her experience the ocean had no intent to drown travellers. -- Sara Sheridan
Looking at my life through the lens of history has made me increasingly grateful to standout women who pushed those boundaries to make the changes from which I have benefited. -- Sara Sheridan
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
Everyone assumes writers spend their time lounging around, writing and occasionally striking a pose whilst having a think. -- Sara Sheridan
Today is the anniversary of my husband's death," Maria announced. It was a dramatic statement, but the occasion seemed to demand it. "And I am going to leave. -- Sara Sheridan
It occurred to me that as a man I could do anything, everything I wanted. -- Sara Sheridan
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. -- Sara Sheridan
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
In the 1950s at least less was expected of women. Now we're supposed to build a career, build a home, be the supermum that every child deserves, the perfect wife, meet the demands of elderly parents, and still stay sane. -- Sara Sheridan
Women the world over suffer restrictions. -- Sara Sheridan
The best historical stories capture the modern imagination because they are, in many senses, still current - part of a continuum. -- Sara Sheridan
It may take a village to raise a baby, but hell! it takes an army to produce a book. -- Sara Sheridan
When you think about the period in which Agatha Christie's crime novels were written, they are actually quite edgy for the time. -- Sara Sheridan
Whereas Mirabelle is tall, thin and sad, Vesta is physically and emotionally her opposite. -- Sara Sheridan
When she first moved to Brighton, the flat on the Lawns had felt luxurious and it had seemed as if she was settling down, sleeping in the same bed every night, the darkness uninterrupted by any hint of emergency. It had felt as if all her difficulties were over. -- Sara Sheridan
Most people do a good deal of whatever they do motivated by love. For me, few stories are truly complete without it. -- Sara Sheridan
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
I'm a novelist by trade and my job is to write a story rather than reconstruct actual events. -- Sara Sheridan
You've got to make an effort to get the details right, because even through someone picks it up and knows it's a novel, they know someone's made it up and they know it's not real, if you make a small mistake they will cease to imaginatively engage with the story. -- Sara Sheridan
I'm a library user and I just don't hoard books. To me, they're for sharing. -- Sara Sheridan
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. -- Sara Sheridan
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
Digital distribution has widened the reading world. -- Sara Sheridan
This is the cusp of an age at least as exciting and as brimful of potential as the early days of the printing press. -- Sara Sheridan
Mirabelle always ate her lunch on Brighton beach if the weather was in any way passable, but out of sheer principle she never paid tuppence for a chair. We did not win the war to have to pay to sit down, she frequently found herself thinking. -- Sara Sheridan
Living in Edinburgh, I consider myself particularly lucky - we have the biggest book festival in the world, a plethora of fascinating libraries and museums, and some of the greatest architecture in Europe. -- Sara Sheridan
Bookshops are at the coalface of our industry. -- Sara Sheridan
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
It was clearly a lot more difficult in the field than in the office, where you could keep your distance and maintain a calculated composure. Being faced with real people was a far tougher call on one's judgement. -- Sara Sheridan
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. -- Sara Sheridan
You couldn't predict what was going to happen for one simple reason: people. -- Sara Sheridan
I'd never be where I am if more successful writers hadn't taken an interest in me and done me a good turn - be it chiming in with constructive criticism or giving me sound advice about my career plan. -- Sara Sheridan
When you want something badly enough it's amazing what you'll ignore. -- Sara Sheridan
I'm very aware we are the first generation ever to have such incredible opportunities to express ourselves publicly to a worldwide audience. -- Sara Sheridan
I've always viewed history as my personal treasure chest. -- Sara Sheridan
It's entirely possible to base an entire book on a long-forgotten letter. -- Sara Sheridan
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. -- Sara Sheridan
In wartime people took action because of what they believed in. In peacetime people were driven by their private concerns. -- Sara Sheridan
If you've been hurt and you've grieved and you've been through the mill, it takes a long time to get over it. -- Sara Sheridan
A writer is like a stick of rock - the words go right through. -- Sara Sheridan
Covert operations relied on the unguarded slip, the unconscious choosing of one word over another. -- Sara Sheridan
A word out of place or an interesting choice of vocabulary can spawn a whole character. -- Sara Sheridan
The digital revolution has wrest a little control away from corporate publishers and white, male, middle-aged critics, but the financial value put on the job of the writer and the misconceptions around that make it extremely difficult to enter the profession. -- Sara Sheridan
Many existing top 20 Scottish writers have flourished in part because of good turns done by institutions, arts community, libraries and bookshops. -- Sara Sheridan
Researching books gets you into nothing but trouble. -- Sara Sheridan
History is full of blank spaces, but good stories, invariably, are not. -- Sara Sheridan
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
Something I notice speaking to writers from south of Hadrian's Wall is that the culture is different. At base, I think Scotland values its creative industries differently from England. -- Sara Sheridan
I would rather be a spinster than sold off, traded in, whatever they may call it. -- Sara Sheridan
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
We might give her presents, tell some tales, but would she ever be able to really understand what the journey had been like for us? -- Sara Sheridan
He prefers his adventures second hand. -- Sara Sheridan
Let's be clear - for people like me, who are obsessed with story and for whom words are their medium, writing is the best job possible. I work hard, but I earn more than the national average wage while I play with my imagination, and for me, that's a dream. -- Sara Sheridan
Edinburgh is a comfortable puddle for a novelist. -- Sara Sheridan
Mirabelle was always an enigma, and he had the sense that if he pushed her, she'd bolt. -- Sara Sheridan
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
I am completely unflustered by whichever medium people choose to read my words. I'm just delighted they're reading them at all! -- Sara Sheridan
There are as many different kinds of books as there are writers - as many different responses as there are readers. -- Sara Sheridan
The cosmetic industry really took off in the 1950s. -- Sara Sheridan
I was middle class and fucked up and spoilt. -- Sara Sheridan
I'm proud of the culture I come from - we're a small country and a close-knit community. -- Sara Sheridan
What used to be edgy (divorces) has become mainstream and what used to be mainstream (racism and sexism) has become shocking. -- Sara Sheridan
An important part of deciding where we want to go, as a society and culture, is knowing where we have come from, and indeed, how far we have come. -- Sara Sheridan
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
People were consuming on average less calories after the war than during the war. Things were still very tough. If you look at the film footage of London streets, even in areas which weren't slums, there are kids in the streets who are dirty and have no shoes on. It was rough. There was a real edge. -- Sara Sheridan
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. -- Sara Sheridan
In the industry, trying out new genres is not always encouraged but what I've discovered is that as a writer, a jaunt outside my comfort zone generally brings new skills to the main body of my work. -- Sara Sheridan
Our business is communication oftentimes through the medium of stories but our capacity has a far greater scope - to entertain certainly, but also to stimulate debate, to mark up changes and differences and that way, to maybe, just now and then, to change the world. -- Sara Sheridan
Kindness was too painful. It had been a long time since he had had to endure it. -- Sara Sheridan
I like you in green,' he said. 'You look as if you're a very beautiful imp.' -- Sara Sheridan
The curve of my waist in a tight fitting summer dress can really make me new friends. -- Sara Sheridan
I'm a professional writer and I consider it part of my job to publicise my work and these days part of that job is done online. -- Sara Sheridan
How lucky am I? Quite often I speak at book festivals, and people ask me how I got published. There's people who have been working on a book for as long as ten years, and I feel like such a cow. -- Sara Sheridan
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. -- Sara Sheridan
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
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
I'm drawn to the 1950s for lots of reasons - everything from the fashion to the increasing sense of freedom and modernity that builds throughout the decade. -- Sara Sheridan
Can I fetch you something, madam? A cup of tea?'
In the old days she'd have been 'miss' and he'd have offered her a cocktail. -- Sara Sheridan
Didn't young people care what the generation before them had achieved? And if not, why had everyone gone through those grim difficult wartime years? -- Sara Sheridan
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
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
Being able to read well in public and talk about your work in an engaging fashion is part of most writers' job specification. -- Sara Sheridan
For a novelist, the gaps in a story are as intriguing as material that still exists. -- Sara Sheridan
Writers have it easy. If you write a bestseller or have your book made into a movie, you'll never have to work again, or so the myth goes. -- Sara Sheridan
I'm in my 40s and I'm constantly surprised by how much my childhood still plays a part in my life. -- Sara Sheridan
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
Mrs Beaumont shrugged. 'Dougie travelled light in life,' she said. 'He knew it was people who were important. -- Sara Sheridan
I've never seen an 'English' books section in, well, an English bookshop, but in Scotland, most bookshops have a set of shelves dedicated to Scottish authors. -- Sara Sheridan
This investigation felt difficult, like driving in fog. -- Sara Sheridan
People see what they expect to see. -- Sara Sheridan
Escapers were the cream of the crop. -- Sara Sheridan
I was fired ignominiously from the Junior School Choir for being so off tune that the choir mistress declared she couldn't even bear to have me mime. -- Sara Sheridan
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
One of Scotland's most important cultural exports - stories. -- Sara Sheridan
Scotland consistently produces world-class writers. -- Sara Sheridan
At the end of the day, that's what a family is - a group of different people who accept each other. -- Sara Sheridan
It's part of a writer's job to be nosy about everything. -- Sara Sheridan
As it stands there is a very strong argument that as the book trade becomes increasingly corporate it's our literary heritage that is at risk - a vital part of our culture. -- Sara Sheridan
He cannot think. He can scarcely breathe. But he has no desire to either, he simply wants to keep kissing her. -- Sara Sheridan
I spend some time every week in independent bookshops all over the country and what I see is inspiring! -- Sara Sheridan
We don't live in a society that has genuine equality, and every woman we know has experienced that. -- Sara Sheridan
Once you're on the pleasure express, it's hard to get off and switch to another, slower service. -- Sara Sheridan
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. -- Sara Sheridan
I love stories that suck you in, that you can't stop reading because you are quite simply there. -- Sara Sheridan
Molly Bloom is simply the most sensuous woman in literature. -- Sara Sheridan
We had laid down the law : no chocolate, no sex. -- Sara Sheridan
Most fledgling and mid-list writers are lucky to be offered a 4-figure sum and are not only expected to deliver copy that needs minimal editing but also take an active part in marketing and publicizing their work. -- Sara Sheridan
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
It often horrified the English community that she spent her time with local farmers and horse traders, eccentrics and mystics, but she valued expertise over convention and had long believed if you were going to make discoveries in the world you must first quit your Englishness and open your eyes. -- Sara Sheridan
My family spans many world religions, ethnicities and nationalities. The truth is that I don't have one identity. I'm Scottish, British, European, Humanist, Atheist and in part at least, culturally Jewish. -- Sara Sheridan
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 harrowing and I much prefer if it isn't completely outlined for me because my imagination can do that. -- Sara Sheridan
He tasted of whisky and his skin was rough where he hadn't shaved, but Mirabelle kissed him back. -- Sara Sheridan
I'm grateful that I've enjoyed the support of libraries, bookshops and institutional funders. -- Sara Sheridan
I didn't want to give up my job and join the ranks of the Doing Fuck All brigade no matter how much money I had in the bank. -- Sara Sheridan
I always thought that bagels and lox was my soul food, but it turns out it's sushi. -- Sara Sheridan
Like good reading skills, good writing skills require immersion and imaginative engagement. -- Sara Sheridan
I am the Angel of Death to any kind of plant. -- Sara Sheridan
A flock of small birds took off from the wall of the fort. They moved like a length of dark silk caught by the breeze as they headed out to sea. Behind them, the sky was the colour of forget-me-nots. The sun blazed. -- Sara Sheridan
A paucity of material can open up just as many possibilities. -- Sara Sheridan
History makes my mouth water - and that is as much because of the voids in what documentation remains as what is set in stone. -- Sara Sheridan
Having instant feedback on twitter to research material I'm considering is an enormous help. -- Sara Sheridan
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
He didn't look as if he'd been through a whirlwind exactly but he'd certainly endured a stiff breeze. -- Sara Sheridan
Sometimes a person's first assumption was very telling. It revealed how they perceived the situation. -- Sara Sheridan
A chap's impending death has a way of focusing the mind. -- Sara Sheridan
It is strange that what seems at first alien becomes second nature in the blink of an eye. -- Sara Sheridan
Some women will do anything for a glass of champagne and a safe bed. -- Sara Sheridan
I am more one for the story, I think, than the action. -- Sara Sheridan
Mirabelle sat down, dropping into the cushions like a ball being caught in a large leather glove. -- Sara Sheridan
She curled sideways into the milky light of the bedside lamp and began to read. -- Sara Sheridan
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
On Twitter, people who had read my book followed me and I could see what else they were reading, why they'd liked what I'd written and by the by, more about them than I'd ever elicit from two minutes in a tent at a book festival, stuck behind a signing desk. -- Sara Sheridan
The hard fact is that writing is available to readers because of market factors as much as particular writing talent. -- Sara Sheridan
An eerie atmosphere leeched from the soot-damaged walls. It was as if the house had died, and yet she felt she belonged here. It was as if the old place wanted to claim her from the grave. -- Sara Sheridan
If I hadn't been able to get my first book published, I am not sure what I would have done. -- Sara Sheridan
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
The question shouldn't be 'Are we guilty about our colonial past;' it should be 'Why aren't we more guilty about our corporate present'? -- Sara Sheridan
Our archives are treasure troves - a testament to many lives lived and the complexity of the way we move forward. They contain clues to the real concerns of day-to-day life that bring the past alive. -- Sara Sheridan
Mirabelle and Vesta have plenty in common because they are facing descrimination in different ways, but they're also a nice contrast. -- Sara Sheridan
That boy is talented. You don't develop those gifts in houses or in schools. -- Sara Sheridan
Often we don't notice the stringent rules to which our culture subjects us. -- Sara Sheridan
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
On of the prerequisites for my mobile phone is that I have to be able to fling it at a wall if I lose my temper. -- Sara Sheridan
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. -- Sara Sheridan
If the universe was scientific and just left to itself, then we'd have statistical probabilities to rely on. But once people are involved it sometimes becomes much more problematic because they're erratic. People do crazy things that don't make sense. -- Sara Sheridan
Only a man with nothing to hide could make that kind of racket. -- Sara Sheridan
The telling of any character is what they do in a different situation. -- Sara Sheridan
Occasionally a particular word or phrase in a letter or diary has sparked an entire plot - like an echo from history, still very alive. -- Sara Sheridan
In wartime, she thought to herself, you don't call a death murder. -- Sara Sheridan
Everyone was important during the war. Everyone. We worked together and we won. -- Sara Sheridan
You have no future when the past rules you. -- Sara Sheridan
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
If you put Mirabelle into some of the situations she gets into, there is only one way Mirabelle can behave. -- Sara Sheridan
Some matters are simply contentious. Sometimes you're never going to get it right. -- Sara Sheridan
Scottish writers are particularly successful in the crime genre. -- Sara Sheridan
She picked up the stout and took a sip. It slid down her throat like silk. -- Sara Sheridan
You don't know what the hell you look like when you're just some little schoolgirl. -- Sara Sheridan
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. -- Sara Sheridan
If there's one shade a woman of colour can't wear it's got to be the one everyone expects, hasn't it? -- Sara Sheridan
It's easy to laugh at etiquette, but in a hundred years, our children's grandchildren will almost certainly be laughing at us. -- Sara Sheridan
Edinburgh is alive with words. -- Sara Sheridan
One of my favourite parts of writing is doing the research. It's the door into that magical reading/writing state - the raw material for making the story real. -- Sara Sheridan
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. -- Sara Sheridan
Small details are a vital part of allowing a reader to make an imaginative connection with long dead historical figures. -- Sara Sheridan
Writing the same kind of material is no guarantee you'll be working from the same ethos so that writers from different fields are just as likely to have an understanding of each other's work as someone working in the same genre. -- Sara Sheridan
Writers of novels live in a strange world where what's made up is as important as what's real. -- Sara Sheridan
Parisians were not easy to engage in conversation. Perhaps that was why the Resistance had been so successful. -- Sara Sheridan
I have always been a night owl rather than a lark. -- Sara Sheridan
We are in the middle of the biggest revolution in reading and writing since the advent of the Gutenberg press. -- Sara Sheridan
Writing is such a solitary occupation that it takes a long time to build up a group of professional peers with whom you genuinely identify. -- Sara Sheridan
They should be taking bonuses from bankers, not library books from schoolchildren. What kind of society are we building? -- Sara Sheridan
New technologies and resources offer exciting opportunities. They democratise access to information. -- Sara Sheridan
Writing about the 1950s has given me tremendous respect for my mother's generation. -- Sara Sheridan
My fascination with history is as much about the present as it is about the past. -- Sara Sheridan
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
Those who have not been stung will hardly fear a bee the same as those who have. -- Sara Sheridan
I've always felt that good writing does not have to be literary. -- Sara Sheridan
I write fast. I'm one of the lucky ones. -- Sara Sheridan
When you sit at the back of a room you can keep a check on everything. -- Sara Sheridan
Our children make us so vulnerable. Our parents too, I suppose. -- Sara Sheridan
The devil was always in the detail. And here the detail was certainly devilish. -- Sara Sheridan
Being a writer is a more difficult job than people imagine. -- Sara Sheridan
The space where I write is in my head, I suppose. -- Sara Sheridan
I have a very strong sense that we only know where we are by looking clearly at where we've come from. -- Sara Sheridan
The sound of pencils taking notes provided a low scrape and hum, almost like radio interference. -- Sara Sheridan
As an historical novelist - there are few jobs more retrospective. I dumped science at an early age. -- Sara Sheridan
As a historical novelist, there are few jobs more retrospective. -- Sara Sheridan
We are home to each other now. -- Sara Sheridan
Scotland just isn't terribly Tory. -- Sara Sheridan
I believe the era of the militant lady is back. -- Sara Sheridan
You can't trust anyone you have to pay, and really, they can't trust you. -- Sara Sheridan
I can't bear literary snobbery. -- Sara Sheridan
Sometimes life isn't what we want, it's what we get. -- Sara Sheridan
History at its best is a gritty, dirty business. -- Sara Sheridan
Such a night cannot be shaken from a woman's memory. Such a night changes your life forever. -- Sara Sheridan
Very often the characters people respond best to have little parts of reality they can relate to. -- Sara Sheridan
Personally I estimate about a third of my time is spent on author events, social media and traditional publicity. -- Sara Sheridan
Grabbing readers by the imagination is a writer's job. -- 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. -- Sara Sheridan
I am a storyteller, not a historian, and it's my ambition to create something compelling - something unputdownable and riveting - that chimes with the real history but is, in fact, fiction. -- Sara Sheridan
Writers have a well-deserved reputation for being eccentric. Everything you've heard is true. -- Sara Sheridan
I know a lot of writers, and everyone works differently, but this is something that we truly have in common across all genres - the fiction has to be real inside your head. -- Sara Sheridan
I wanted to find something I could do at home. I sat down with a friend and made a list of all the things I could try, and one of them was writing a novel. -- Sara Sheridan
While what I write is always largely consistent with the records that remain I freely admit that where historical fact proves a barrier to invention, I simply move a detail a little one way or another. -- Sara Sheridan
People are so different in wartime. No one gets to be ordinary. Not really. -- Sara Sheridan
Social and cultural history is often comprised of whatever diaries and letters remain and that is down to chance and wide open to interpretation. -- Sara Sheridan
Always wise aunts come in many guises. There are maiden aunts, dowager aunts, and that delightful creature, the eccentric aunt. I fear I fall into the latter category. -- Sara Sheridan
There's nothing like a military man, even out of uniform. -- Sara Sheridan
I spend a lot of time imagining things - in fact, you could say that imagining things is my job. -- Sara Sheridan
Writers need each other. -- Sara Sheridan
Writers are, as a profession, nothing if not eccentric. -- Sara Sheridan
I've always been attracted to stories about rebels - things that are unusual and sometimes dangerous. -- Sara Sheridan
When a chap is passionate, the readership can sense it. -- Sara Sheridan
No one's book is perfect. -- Sara Sheridan
Kissing her is like drinking salted water, he thinks. His thirst only increases. -- Sara Sheridan
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. -- Sara Sheridan
Cases fired by emotion rather than money were dangerous. -- Sara Sheridan
It took a certain kind of person to come from luxury and seek out danger. -- Sara Sheridan
I'm unique - a cosmopolitan mix. -- Sara Sheridan
The library is a symbol of freedom. -- Sara Sheridan
Readers are so much more important than well, just about everything. -- Sara Sheridan
People responded to body language without even thinking. It was important to get it absolutely right. -- Sara Sheridan
I wrote 'I'm Me' because I was asked to write a children's book. -- Sara Sheridan
I've been obsessed with stories since I was a kid so it's no surprise that I ended up writing for a living. -- Sara Sheridan
I am incredibly jammy. I really am. -- Sara Sheridan
