Sarah Zettel Quotes

I'm a writer who likes to be influenced.

Jean Plaidy was the greatest influence on me.

All writers are magpies, right? We're always stealing bits from different places and then weaving them into our little nest.

Just as I could tell you about my first Andre Norton novel or my first L'Engle or my first Asimov, I could write a paragraph about how each of these writers influenced me, my writing, and my thoughts, and do to this day.

Other people’s words are so important. And then without warning they stop being important, along with all those words of yours that their words prompted you to write. Much of the excitement of a new novel lies in the repudiation of the one written before. Other people’s words are the bridge you use to cross from where you were to wherever you’re going.

I feel very conscious of my influences. T.H. White is very important for me.

My first six books were horror, I think because when I was young I loved Stephen King. John Wyndham, Daphne Du Maurier, and it's natural to try and emulate the books you first loved.

I don't know anyone who is a writer who isn't influenced by the relationships in their life.

When I wrote 'Noughts and Crosses', I was halfway through it when I realised this was very like 'Romeo and Juliet'... as long as you make it your own, and put your own spin on it, I think it's brilliant to use other great work to find your own voice.

I do tend to take lines from other lines I like, and then write around them.

I think every writer of detective fiction writing today has been influenced by Mr. Parker. I'm of a generation that followed Robert Parker, and it was impossible to read the genre and not be influenced by him.

If not for my mom, I wouldn't be a writer today. When I was a little girl, I rarely saw her without a book in her hand.

The books I read, if they intrude on my writing, do so as weather will pass through and touch a landscape - affecting it, yes, but only now and then leaving a permanent mark.

I am suspicious of writers who say their work is original and influenced by nobody. If it is, it is probably uninteresting. The biggest source of novels is other novels.

I haven't read a book in a very, very long time because, when I'm writing, I don't like to see other people's work. I don't want to see something great and not be able to use it, and I don't want to have any subconscious influences.

'Jurassic Park' and 'Star Wars' shoved me into loving sci-fi and film in general when I was a barely coherent 3-year-old. And 'Lord of the Rings' took me to another planet entirely. Before that series, I knew I loved writing, but after, I knew that I had to write.

The moment you start thinking about what other people and other artists think, you're going to start writing like other people.

When I saw 'Hamilton,' it changed my life. It's one of the most beautiful things I saw on stage.

I was well under the spell of the old Gold Medal Crime novels when I wrote 'Savage Season,' and I wanted to write a modern version of that. I had tried the same thing with 'Cold in July,' and I wanted to give it another go.

I'm impressed with Ed Sheeran. I think he has a terrific point of view and a great mentality but I sense there is someone in the background saying to him, 'We need more love songs, Ed.'

When people ask me where I get my ideas, I lie. I tell them I draw inspiration from the news, the world, my dreams. Or I joke and say that I steal from other writers. I lie because I don't know where ideas come from, and I'm afraid if I look too hard, they'll stop coming.

Without science fiction, without the influence these books have had on me over the years, I'm not sure I would care much about reading or writing today.

I don't listen to film music at all. I don't want to be influenced.

I remember when I was trying to do 'Metropolitan,' in breaks I would read a page of two of Jane Austen as a palate-cleanser.