162 Quotes by Samantha Shannon

I'm often daydreaming, and it's because I've always liked the idea of there being something more than the normal world.

I am the first one to go to university in my family. I am the first writer as well. My dad is a retired policeman, and my mom works for a glass-processing company. She is health-and-safety manager, and my stepfather is a plumber. I have four half siblings, one from my mom's marriage and three from my dad's marriage, so we are kind of scattered.

I've been writing since I was about thirteen but didn't start a book until 2007. I spent four years writing a sci-fi novel before I wrote 'The Bone Season' at nineteen.

I was not really aware of the dystopian genre before I read 'The Handmaid's Tale.' Many poets as well, like John Donne and Emily Dickinson, would be the influences; I specialized in Emily Dickinson at university. Both of those poets have really interesting ways of looking at life and death.

I was a hacker of sorts. Not a mind 'reader,' exactly; more a mind 'radar,' in tune with the workings of the aether. I could sense the nuances of dreamscapes and rogue spirits. Things outside myself. Things the average voyant wouldn't feel.

I was so sure I wanted to be a novelist. I would spend hours and hours every day writing. Little stories about nothing in particular. I recall one about someone with an illness. But my dedication wasn't really healthy, and it reached the point where I wasn't sleeping. My mum would tell me, 'You need to go outside to get some fresh air.'

People question what I thought of Oxford. Students used to talk about the 'Oxford bubble' because the place can make you feel cut off from the rest of the world. I would forget there were places like London that were not centred round libraries and essays.

I worry that people think you have to go to a university to be a good writer, which is categorically untrue. I don't think I learned how to write at Oxford. I did not go to any creative writing classes or anything.

'The Bone Season' is violent. There's sex. My little brother keeps asking to read it, and he's 9, so I'm like, 'No, it's not happening.'