Sarah Waters Quotes

Quotes about:

Character Heart Love Lying Writing

And perhaps there is a limit to the grieving that the human heart can do. As when one adds salt to a tumbler of water, there comes a point where simply no more will be absorbed.

Sarah Waters

Sad, Moving On, Grief

49 Copy quote
Cut like crazy. Less is more. I've often read manuscripts - including my own - where I've got to the beginning of, say, chapter two and have thought: “This is where the novel should actually start.” A huge amount of information about character and backstory can be conveyed through small detail. The emotional attachment you feel to a scene or a chapter will fade as you move on to other stories. Be business-like about it.

Sarah Waters

Crazy, Moving, Character

"Ten rules for writing fiction (part two)" by Hilary Mantel, www.theguardian.com. February 19, 2010.

31 Copy quote
Respect your characters, even the minor ones. In art, as in life, everyone is the hero of their own particular story; it is worth thinking about what your minor characters' stories are, even though they may intersect only slightly with your protagonist's.

Sarah Waters

Art, Hero, Character

"Sarah Waters's rules for writers" by Sarah Waters, www.theguardian.com. February 23, 2010.

18 Copy quote
Even ashes are a part of your freedom.

Sarah Waters

Ashes, Your Freedom

13 Copy quote
I do love the past but wouldnt want to live in it.

Sarah Waters

Past, Want

10 Copy quote
I knew that I couldn't lie beside her, without wanting to touch her. I couldn't have felt her breath come upon my mouth, without wanting to kiss her. And I couldn't have kissed her, without wanting to save her.

Sarah Waters

Lying, Kissing, Mouths

Sarah Waters (2002). “Fingersmith”, p.153, Penguin

13 Copy quote
Why do gentlemen's voices carry so clearly, when women's are so easily stifled?

Sarah Waters

Voice, Gentleman

Sarah Waters (2002). “Affinity”, p.229, Penguin

8 Copy quote
Why is it we can never love the people we ought to?

Sarah Waters

People, Ought

7 Copy quote
We have a name for your disease. We call it a hyper-aesthetic one. You have been encouraged to over-indulge yourself in literature; and have inflamed your organs of fancy.

Sarah Waters

Names, Indulge Yourself, Literature

Sarah Waters (2002). “Fingersmith”, p.447, Penguin

4 Copy quote
Being in love, you know... it's not like having a canary, in a cage. When you lose one sweetheart, you can't just go out and get another to replace her.

Sarah Waters

Love You, Being In Love, Cages

Sarah Waters (2011). “Tipping The Velvet”, p.213, Hachette UK

15 Copy quote
I barely knew I had skin before I met you.

Sarah Waters

Love, Skins, Before I Met You

16 Copy quote
life is crap but, every day is an experience

Sarah Waters

Life Is, Crap

4 Copy quote
I knew Id always be a second-rate academic, and I thought, Well, Id rather be a second-rate novelist or even a third-rate one.

Sarah Waters

Novelists, Academic, Rate

13 Copy quote
The bad blood rose in me, just like wine.

Sarah Waters

Wine, Blood, Rose

Sarah Waters (2002). “Fingersmith”, p.158, Penguin

4 Copy quote
I felt that thread that had come between us, tugging, tugging at my heart - so hard, it hurt me. A hundred times I almost rose, almost went in to her; a hundred times I thought, Go to her! Why are you waiting? Go back to her side! But every time, I thought of what would happen if I did. I knew that I couldn't lie beside her, without wanting to touch her. I couldn't have felt her breath upon my mouth, without wanting to kiss her. And I couldn't have kissed her, without wanting to save her.

Sarah Waters

Hurt, Lying, Heart

Sarah Waters (2002). “Fingersmith”, p.153, Penguin

6 Copy quote
There is no patience so terrible as that of the deranged.

Sarah Waters

No Patience, Terrible, Deranged

Sarah Waters (2002). “Fingersmith”, p.203, Penguin

4 Copy quote
I never expected my books to do even as well as they have. I still feel grateful for it, every single day.

Sarah Waters

Book, Grateful, Wells

7 Copy quote
She supposed that houses, after all - like the lives that were lived in them - were mostly made of space. It was the spaces, in fact, which counted, rather than the bricks.

Sarah Waters

Space, House, Bricks

Sarah Waters (2006). “The Night Watch”, Riverhead Books (Hardcover)

5 Copy quote
It's a curious, wanting thing.

Sarah Waters

Lust, Curious

"Fingersmith". Book by Sarah Waters, February 4, 2002.

4 Copy quote
How will a person know, Selina, when the soul that has the affinity with hers is near it?" She answered, "She will know. Does she look for air, before she breathes it? This love will be guided to her; and when it comes, she will know. And she will do anything to keep that love about her, then. Because to lose it will be like a death to her.

Sarah Waters

Air, Soul, Doe

4 Copy quote
With every step I took away from her, the movement at my heart and between my legs grew more defined: I felt like a ventriloquist, locking his protesting dolls in to a trunk.

Sarah Waters

Heart, Dolls, Movement

7 Copy quote
Your heart-as you call it-and hers are alike, after all: they are like mine, like everyone's. They resemble nothing so much as those meters you will find on gas-pipes: they only perk up and start pumping when you drop coins in.

Sarah Waters

Heart, Coins, Meter

Sarah Waters (2002). “Fingersmith”, p.140, Penguin

4 Copy quote
I'll burn myself, or I'll cut myself. For a burn or a cut might be shown, might be nursed, might scar or heal, would be a miserable kind of emblem; would anyway be there, on the surface of her body, rather than corroding it from within. Now the thought came to her again, that she might scar herself in some way. It came, like the solution to a problem: I won't be doing it like some hysterical girl. I won't be hoping she'll come catch me at it. It won't be like lying on the sitting-room floor. I'll be doing it for myself, as a secret.

Sarah Waters

Girl, Lying, Cutting

Sarah Waters (2011). “The Night Watch”, p.114, Hachette UK

13 Copy quote
Weep all the artful tears you like. You shall never make my hard heart the softer.

Sarah Waters

Heart, Tears, Like You

Sarah Waters (2002). “Fingersmith”, p.198, Penguin

4 Copy quote
She scissored the curls away, and - toms, grow easily sentimental over their haircuts, but I remember this sensation very vividly - it was not like she was cutting hair, it was as if I had a pair of wings beneath my shoulder-blades, that the flesh had all grown over, and she was slicing free.

Sarah Waters

Cutting, Hair, Wings

4 Copy quote

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Born: July 21, 1966
Occupation: Novelist
Cite this Page: Citation

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