I've ended up feeling fonder of 'The Paying Guests' than…

“Now, from the crown of my head to the curve of my toe-nails, there was an unguent for every part of me - oil…

— Sarah Waters

“Miss Craven held up a pair she thought would fit me—monstrous great things they were, of course, and I thought she smiled as she…

— Sarah Waters

I barely knew I had skin before I met you.

— Sarah Waters

I suppose I really seemed mad, then; but it was only through the awfulness of having said nothing but the truth, and being thought…

— Sarah Waters

My nan was a nursery maid. Most people weren't in big houses. They were maids of all work.

— Sarah Waters

Being in love, you know... it's not like having a canary, in a cage. When you lose one sweetheart, you can't just go out…

— Sarah Waters

For was that all, she thought bleakly, that love ever was? Something that saved one from loneliness? A sort of insurance policy against not…

— Sarah Waters

“And yet, I seemed to feel my eyes bound, too, with bands of silk. And at my throat there was a velvet collar.”

— Sarah Waters

“No-one speaks. No-one moves (…). We glide, softly, in silence, into our dark and separate hells”

— Sarah Waters

“She loved these walks through London. She seemed, as she made them, to become porous, to soak in detail after detail; or else, like…

— Sarah Waters

“Oh, for shame! Nancy, have you never seen Florrie's face in a chrysanthemum, or a rose?' 'Never.' I said. 'Though there was a flounder…

— Sarah Waters

“My locket hangs in my closet beside the glass, the only shining thing among so many shadows.”

— Sarah Waters

“Mr Bliss looked grave. 'Your brother was very sensible to warn you, Miss Astley - but sadly misinformed. There are no trams in Trafalgur…

— Sarah Waters

I knew Id always be a second-rate academic, and I thought, Well, Id rather be a second-rate novelist or even a third-rate one.

— Sarah Waters

“It is a world that is made of love. Did you think there is only the kind of love your sister knows for her…

— Sarah Waters