Sara was my favorite [song] ~ for that kind of song. Sara was, and is, the love of my life. There are different kinds of favorites. You have your miserable favorites and your happy favorites. I can't pick just one [song].
~Stevie Nicks, Arizona Living Magazine, September 1983

Dreaming...and the wind became...crazy! And he hugged me, gently.
~Stevie Nicks, additional ending lyrics from an unreleased, 7 minute version of Sara

Sara was pretty much about Mick. So, he was the 'great dark wing'. And, ah, it was about everything that was going on at that particular time, too, but he was the, the reason for the, you know, the beginning of it.
~Stevie Nicks, MTV Fanatic, 1998

Click on the tambourine to download a mp3 file of the never-broadcast Sara from VH1s Storytellers

Sara [is my most personal song] It's about myself, and what all of us in Fleetwood Mac were going through at the time. The true version of that song is 16 minutes long. It's a saga with many verses people haven't heard.
~Stevie Nicks, Us magazine, July 1990

[On who Sara is] Probably my alter ego, my other self.
~Stevie Nicks, Montreal Interview

I wrote Sara on the piano, by myself. The original Sara was 16 minutes long. Like about nine more verses than what you hear on the record. It got edited down to 14 minutes, down to 11 minutes, down to 9 minutes, down to 7 minutes, down to 4 minutes and 40 seconds. I was to the point where I went, 'Is the word Sara even going to be left in the song?'

I knew that Sara would be very popular because I loved writing that song. I've had more fun writing that...I remember the night I wrote it. 'I sat up with a very good friend of mine whose name is Sara, who was married to Mick Fleetwood. She likes to think it's completely about her, but it's really not completely about her. It's about me, about her, about Mick, about Fleetwood Mac. Its about all of us at that point. There's little bits about each one of us in that song and when it had all the other verses it really covered a vast bunch of people. Sara was the kind of song you could fall in love with, because I fell in love with it...
~Stevie Nicks, Tommy Vance show, May 1994

[On whether the line in the song Sara, 'When you build your house, I'll come by' is about Don Henley, whom she was dating at the time?] (laughs) That is true. He did [build the house]. And I was in it before he finished it.
~Stevie Nicks, Us magazine, July 1990

If I ever have a little girl I will name her Sara. It's a very special name to me. I love singing it on stage. It's the absolute delight of my night. There's so much in Sara. And it is ~ the poet in my heart, for sure.
~Stevie Nicks, Jim Ladd Innerview, 1979

Click on the tambourine to download a wav file of the clip (173k)

There were some great similarities [in the lyrics], and I never said she didn't write the words she wrote. Just don't tell me I didn't write the words I wrote. Most people think that the other party will settle out of court, but she picked the wrong songwriter. To call me a thief about my first love, my songs, that's going too far. [After a few months, the woman's lawyers finally gave up, stating] 'We believe you.'
~Stevie Nicks, on her lawsuit over the song Sara, Rolling Stone, 1981