Quotes by Sara Sheridan

For me, writing stories set, well, wherever theyre best set, is a form of cultural curiosity that is uniquely Scottish - were famous for travelling in search of adventure.

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.

Lately Mirabelle had reflected wistfully if people even noticed her – a smartly dressed woman who came and went along the Promenade, always alone.

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.

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.

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.

My fascination with history is as much about the present as it is about the past.

The question shouldnt be, Are we guilty about our Colonial past? it should be, Why arent we more guilty about our corporate present?

He cannot think. He can scarcely breathe. But he has no desire to either, he simply wants to keep kissing her.

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

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.

The scraps of information she’d gathered knocked against each other, like balls in a pinball machine in one of the arcades on the front. Secrets drew her in every time – the unsaid.

Covert operations relied on the unguarded slip, the unconscious choosing of one word over another.

The good thing about the aristocracy – German or English – was that they were easily traced, Mirabelle thought.

This investigation felt difficult, like driving in fog.


Mirabelle was always an enigma, and he had the sense that if he pushed her, she’d bolt.

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.

If you tempted a poor man with a fortune, who could blame the fellow for taking what he could?

Writers have a well-deserved reputation for being eccentric. Everything youve heard is true.

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