Diana Gabaldon Quotes

Sometimes, my books start with a scene I see in my mind, such as a woman in a wedding dress running away from her wedding like in 'Embers of Love.' Sometimes, a book can start with a character.

I knew as far back as 2001 that I would write a book called 'A Visit From the Goon Squad,' though I had no idea what kind of book it would be.

I like to sit down every day and not know where the book is going. I have no idea where the book is going to go or how it's going to end as I'm writing it.

I always say that, for me, writing a book is like a wacky Greyhound bus trip - I know where I'm starting and where I'll end up, but I have no idea what will happen along the way.

The process of writing a novel begins with a pang, a moment of recognition, and a situation, a character, or something you read in a paper, that seems to go off, like a solar flare inside your head.

The first book I sat down to write was an historical romance. It was really bad and thankfully no one ever saw it.

When I get an idea for a book, something appeals to me, it's usually a character. I'll see a picture of a female marshal in front of the courthouse in Miami and she's got a shotgun on her hip and it goes up on an angle. And she's good-looking. And I say, 'I've got to use her.'

I don't have goals when writing books, apart from getting to the end. I have rather vague ideas about how I want things to feel, I'm big on ambience. I have a title, a beginning and a probable ending and go from there.

In general, the main themes emerge early for each book, even before the storyline and characters, as I research the time and place I want to draw upon. Having said that, every single book so far has offered me surprises en route, and these include motifs that come forward as I am writing.

I think 'Dark Blue' came to me while I was doing a project in London. I read it, and the character immediately popped out at me.

The "germ," wherever gathered, has ever been for me, "the germ of a story," and most of the stories strained to shape under my hand have sprung from a single small seed, a seed as remote and windblown as a casual hint.

The only successful way to write, and the only one I have found, is to be the character. Give up on trying to control them. Writers always talk about hearing voices. That's what they mean.

Before 'Memphis,' I had never considered working on a musical. But when Joe DiPietro sent me the script, I heard the entire score in my head.

What I like about writing novels is that I'm in my own world for nine months.

When I first heard the 'Urumi' script, I was surprised, shocked, and excited. It was a strong script with a reference to the past. It had fact mixed with fiction. To incorporate facts into a film and introduce fictional characters was interesting. I loved the script.

There's some of me in all my characters.

Whenever I write a novel, most of the time it starts with barest slip of an idea.

I think the most rewarding part for me is kind of not knowing where the story's going next, and then finding out and being blown away by it.

'The Hummingbird's Daughter' took 20 years to write.

There have been many days when I have had to work up to writing 'Irredeemable' because I just didn't feel like wallowing in that world, feeling those emotions... but that's the process.

My experience of fiction was, in the beginning, so exploratory. I wasn't sitting down to a desk at Yaddo with a month, thinking I have to have a draft of a novel.

I was obsessed with everything about 'Outlander' - the stories, the way it looked. I thought, 'You know what? I'm going to go to Scotland, and I'm going to find my own 'Outlander.''

I may have a story idea but everything starts moving when I am able to see my characters clearly. They then organically lead or respond to the story or the universe I want to create.

The stories I work on, especially for any length of time, do tend to become personal to me.

There are fragments of me in all my characters.