Sara Sheridan Quotes

I am sure of this: that no one can write a book which children will like unless he write it for himself first.

Readers would email me and say, 'Please write a novel about so-and-so,' but it has to come from yourself and not so much from your readership.

My stories run up and bite me on the leg - I respond by writing down everything that goes on during the bite. When I finish, the idea lets go and runs off.

You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.

Blank paper has always inspired me.

I tell my writing students that everything is material; just pay attention.

I prefer writing originals.

I have no plans for a future Jemima Shore mystery, but would write one tomorrow if a good idea came to me.

I never thought I'd be a writer. I never thought I'd be able to read a book, let alone write one. So if books like this inspire kids to write, or even read a whole book, I think it's good.

Sometimes I'll hear a phrase or a word and write it down in my little black notebook (a writer's best mate), then come back to it and work a plot around it.

My books start almost before I realise it. Once in a while, some accident causes an idea to rise to the surface and say: 'now.'

It was a combination of an intense interest in children's literature, which I've always had, and the feeling that I'd just have a go and see if I could do it.

One thing I always did in my career was writing. I always was writing. I was trying to create things. For myself, for other people.

I think that most of the children's writers live in the world that they've created, and their children are kind of phantoms that wander around the edge of it in the world, but actually the children's writers are the children.

There's actually nothing interesting about me except what I write.

Writing is nothing more than a guided dream.

I would love to write more children's books. There is such a high standard out there for children's books; there are really amazing writers. It is a fantastic creative outlet and such an amazing teaching tool. The thing I love about kids, too, is it is so imaginative and poetic.

I've been writing for as long as I can remember, and reading even before that. My mom still has stories that I wrote when I was in kindergarten. I was a reader and a re-reader. That's the main reason I became a writer.

My freshman English professor at Kent State University in 1984 told me I was a good writer, and she loved all the silly pictures I drew in my notebook. She said I should try writing children's books, and so I did.

Literature for me isn't a workaday job, but something which involves desires, dreams and fantasy.

I find that it's really important for me to imagine characters and situations. That allows me a lot of freedom.

As a young, ambitious novelist, writing for kids never crossed my mind.

Mr. Olsen in the fifth grade made me want to be a writer. He said, 'Chuck, you do this really well. And this is much better than setting fires, so keep it up.' That made me a writer.

If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.

I did not go to any creative writing workshop; I did not major in literature. If I can write, anyone can write. All it needs is imagination.