Sara Sheridan Quotes

You don't need to be able to string a sentence together in a way that is elegant or even vaguely meaningful to produce a bestseller - as Dan Brown has demonstrated time and again.

When 'The Shadow of the Wind' became a success I had already been a working writer, I'd been through the ups and downs, I'd seen how it worked.

Someday I hope to write a book where the royalties will pay for the copies I give away.

I never set out to do this - getting to No. 1 in the 'New York Times' bestseller list wasn't even a pipedream.

Writing my first book, I think in hindsight I went into it saying, 'It's gonna sell.' I was earning enough to scrape by sometime around a book or two before 'Tell No One.' I moved up from $50,000 to $75,000, then $150,000 for each book. I had never thought I would be doing anything else. I had enough encouragement.

My position as the best-selling author at E! is secure - unless Salman Rushdie develops a show with them.

I never set out to be a published writer.

I always grew up with the idea that in order to be a successful writer, I should have a book published.

I published 'Rules of Civility' while I was still working. It became a best seller. I was working on this book, and then I decided to retire.

A fortunate author can write maybe twelve novels in his lifetime.

I'm very lucky. I'm very fortunate that my books have never gone out of print - none of them.

Hell hath no fury like a hustler with a literary agent.

Literary life used to be quite different in Britain in the years I lived there, from 1971 to 1989, because money was not a factor - no one made very much except from U.S. sales and the occasional windfall.

The bewildering success of my books continues to surprise me.

I had no idea I'd end up writing four books when I completed 'Mortal Engines.' I didn't even think it would find a publisher.

I had written children's books for 14 years before I published 'Wicked.' And none of them were poorly reviewed, and none of them sold enough for me to be able to buy a bed.

Once I decided to write, to be published, I knew it would happen.

I know another New York Times bestselling author - Beth Kephart - she self-published one of her books.

There are writers who go their whole lives and never hit that No. 1 spot.

I started in 1957 when I sold my first story to a magazine.

My first book, 'The Age of Wire and String,' came out in 1995, and it was hardly reviewed at all.

You have to go into rehab after doing a David Walliams book. David is such an important man; publishers rate him very, very highly, His books usually go straight to the bestseller number one spot on the day of publication. He is a hugely important writer as far as HarperCollins, his publishers, are concerned.

I sold my very first novel when I was 24 or 25 years old.

If you're going to write a book that might, in its very best accidental career, sell 30,000 copies, you've got to have a day job.

The idea is to become a best-selling author first and then the rest of my books will be slam dunks.