Sarah Waters

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

— 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…

— 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…

— 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…

— Sarah Waters

For was that all, she thought bleakly, that love ever was? Something that saved one from loneliness? A sort of insurance policy…

— Sarah Waters

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

— 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…

— 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…

— 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…

— 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…

— Sarah Waters

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

— Sarah Waters

Sometimes I think I'd be perfectly happy to go on rewriting 'Tipping the Velvet' forever because it was so much fun.

— Sarah Waters

“life is crap but, every day is an experience”

— Sarah Waters

“It was done the day you took me to that house in Bryanston Square, she said. Or even, the time before that,…

— Sarah Waters

“PIGEON MY ARSE!”

— Sarah Waters

All unwillingly I opened my eyes - then I opened them wider, and lifted my head. The heat, my weariness, were quite…

— Sarah Waters

Cut like crazy. Less is more. I've often read manuscripts - including my own - where I've got to the beginning of,…

— Sarah Waters

“Did she remember, how we laughed and blushed? 'Pa used to say your face was like the red heart on a playing…

— Sarah Waters

Why is it we can never love the people we ought to?

— Sarah Waters

“The best thing to do was to brazen it out, throw your head back, walk with a swagger, make a 'character' of…

— Sarah Waters

“They would say my nerve had failed me. They would laugh in my face! I had a certain standing. I was the…

— Sarah Waters