I have friends who are writers who have had movies made of their books, and they are almost uniformly horrified about what's been done - or, at least, dissatisfied.

I read some books, and I thought, 'This is better than sliced bread!' and a month later, I couldn't remember thinking about it. And I've read others that were kind of a slog, and I've put them down and come back six months later thinking, 'Wow, this is great.' So, you know, things change all the time.

You won't have a story unless you have conflict, which means if there's no conflict in a situation, people look for a way to make some.

The media is always looking for a story of one kind or another.

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.

I've never been willing to commit to more than one at a time, because I just don't know - I don't plan the books out ahead of time. So I have no idea how much ground we'll cover.

Actors act... Their job is to become this character. And I have, in fact, seen Sam Heughan become Jamie and Caitriona Balfe become Claire right before my eyes. It was an astonishing transformation.

If you're writing something that's clearly labelled as an alternative history, of course it's perfectly legitimate to play with known historical characters and events, but less so when you're writing an essentially straight historical fiction.

I began writing 'Outlander' in 1988, so the Internet as we now know it didn't exist.

I was writing 'Outlander' for practise and didn't want anyone to know I was doing it. So I couldn't very well announce to my husband that I was quitting my job and abandoning him with three small children to visit Scotland to do research for a novel that I hadn't told him I was writing.

When you're an artist, you can't write with the intent of affecting anyone.

I'm a really slow writer. What I need to start writing on any given day, is a kernel, a line of dialogue, anything I can sense concretely.

I understand what it is that actors do. They embody someone that they aren't.

I'm not a team player. I'm used to having total control over everything I do.

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.

People have been trying to make a two-hour feature film of 'Outlander' for years and years and years.

Each book develops a strong organic shape. And when that shape is complete, the book is complete. I don't know where the end is. I don't start at the beginning. It's like playing Tetris in my head in a very slow kind of way. All the shapes join up.

I think characters are going to be, if not a reflection of the author, at least some refraction of some part of their personality.

I happened to see a really old 'Doctor Who', the second Doctor, Patrick Troughton, and he'd picked up a Scotsman from 1745. It was an 18 or 19-year-old man who appeared in a kilt, and I thought, 'That's rather fetching.'

When I turned 35, I thought, 'Mozart was dead at 36, so I set the bar: I'm going to start writing a book on my next birthday.' I thought historical fiction would be easiest because I was a university professor and know my way around a library, and it seemed easier to look things up than make them up.

Where I live, there is a group of fans who take me out to tea every year to pick my brains about what's coming up.

You are at some point exposed to a wonderful story, and you really want to know what happens next, so you learn to read in order to find out.

My mom would keep all kinds of materials in her classroom for children for reading. She kept comic books, newspapers, sports magazines, and books of all kinds.

I think it's extremely important that children are exposed to reading.