180 Quotes by Sarah Waters

The relationship you have with your mother is like nothing else. They do kind of know everything about you, even though they don't confront it. That is often a dynamic from childhood onwards. As a teenager, you want to be independent and do slightly furtive things.

I've ended up feeling fonder of 'The Paying Guests' than of any of my other novels.

It was a great childhood. We weren't especially wealthy or anything, but I felt I had a kind of safety and freedom.

I love research. Sometimes I think writing novels is just an excuse to allow myself this leisurely time of getting to know a period and reading its books and watching its films. I see it as a real treat.

I'm interested in stories that aren't getting told: it's where my interests lie.

I knew I'd always be a second-rate academic, and I thought, 'Well, I'd rather be a second-rate novelist or even a third-rate one'.

I like dramas because there's a big overlap between film and fiction, so I feel relatively qualified to talk about plot and characterisation and that sort of thing.

I love film and, particularly, shorts. You don't get to see them often, and they're a great little form, like a short story.

The early '20s were like the waist of an hourglass. Lots of things were hurtling toward it and squeezing through it and then hurtling out the other side.