Sam Heughan Quotes

After finishing 'The Book of Life,' I needed a bit of a break from the Bishops and de Clermonts. Honestly, I wasn't sure when - or even if! - they would capture all of my attention again.

As the installments in the 'Immortals After Dark' series span simultaneous timelines, making sure the details remained accurate was a hair-raising/losing exercise.

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.''

My idea of a good fantasy is something that's absolutely grounded in reality. And there's a little element that doesn't belong there - and that's the fantasy element - that you have to react to and deal with in a completely real way.

I couldn't resist hiding some historical details and a few clues relevant to the plot and characters of 'A Discovery of Witches' throughout the pages of the novel.

History opens up new worlds to film-makers all the time.

The 'Heirs of Alexandria' series mixes the Renaissance with magic and demons, based on a changed theological history.

An editor named Kerrie Hughes wanted me to write a short story that brought my fire-spider Smudge from my goblin books into the present-day world. I came up with libriomancy as a way to make that happen.

I'm a sucker for period pieces. There is always great opportunity for research and to delude yourself into feeling like you are in a different time and place.

'The Black Prism' is a story of emperors and prisoners and magic set in a Mediterranean, 1600-esque world. It's a fantasy story; it's fast and fun and inventive.

While you certainly will recognize 'Outlander' if you've been reading the books, there's also this wonderful sense of novelty and discovery about it because of all the little new touches and twists. I watch it in utter fascination waiting to see what will happen.

Beneath the Sugar Sky' is an homage to the portal fantasies of my childhood: it is the portal running in reverse.

I like going back in time and writing historical fantasy. I use some real historical characters as a background to give depth to the fantasy. And I throw my fictional characters into the midst of this, and, so far, it has turned out interesting.

Actually it's a gift as an actor to cover such different parts of history. It's like time travelling, being inside a history book, in the actual locations.

It's always a treat to have something that lets me explore a different period. I do try to be a stickler, as much as I can, but luckily the writers are, as well.

I don't think any book of mine will ever come as close to pure fantasy as 'A Heaven of Others.' I'll never again set a book in a world or after-world in which it's impossible to buy a cup of coffee or take an undisturbed afternoon nap.

One of the best things about folklore and fairy tales is that the best fantasy is what you find right around the corner, in this world. That's where the old stuff came from.

All I had when I began writing the first book was rather vague images conjured up by the notion of a man in a kilt, so essentially I began with Jamie, although I had no idea what his name was at the time.

While I appreciate horror movies, I'd love the opportunity to do something transformative, especially because people see me as contemporary. There's a lot to explore in my career that could take me back to another time. A period piece would be an incredible game of dress-up, too.

With 'Game of Thrones' you're not really dealing with anything that is based in reality. You have dragons and magic and all of that.

I loved the idea of a book of fairytales meant especially for peculiar children, and I love even more the idea of making that fictional book real.

I don't read a lot of fiction, but one of my favorite authors is William Kennedy; his books, to me, almost read like historical dramas because the mythologies are so detailed as he wove fiction with the factual history of Albany.

There are similarities between historical novels and science fiction. Being thrown into the Napoleonic Wars is just as much of a different world as space.

My goal is to produce as rich and historical an experience for the reader as I possibly can, to the point where when somebody finishes reading the book, he or she emerges from it with a sense of having lived in the past.

My favorite movies of all times is 'Doctor Zhivago,' and I love 'Gone With the Wind.' I'd love to play some Southern belle or something where I owned a plantation.