Claire Tomalin Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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I was always interested in the kind of history they didn't teach you in school.
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I don't know what's going to happen in life, so I don't think it's fair that I know what's going to happen in 'Homeland.'
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The reason can only be this: heroic poetry depends on an heroic age, and an age is heroic because of what it is, not because of what it does.
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If you keep saying things are going to be bad, you have a good chance of being a prophet.
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The three great problems of this century; the degradation of man in the proletariat, the subjection of women through hunger, the atrophy of the child by darkness.
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All true happiness, pure joy, sweet bounties, and unclouded pleasure are contained within the knowledge and love of God.
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The creative works of the entertainment industry belong to the millions of people who make them and are not for others to steal or unlawfully distribute.
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Those of us raised in modern cities tend to notice horizontal and vertical lines more quickly than lines at other orientations. In contrast, people raised in nomadic tribes do a better job noticing lines skewed at intermediate angles, since Mother Nature tends to work with a wider array of lines than most architects.
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My favorite actresses were Geraldine Paige, Anne Bancroft and Kim Stanley.
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Acting was something I had to do.
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Science may be described as the art of systematic over-simplification.
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I used to get a shiver if I thought about holding balloons, because I was scared of floating away.
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I think that's like the age-old psychological core issue for any situation. Anybody who has had an experience with a parent that is absent, it's going to manifest.
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I often have the impression that the book I've just finished isn't satisfied: that it rejects me because I haven't successfully completed it. Because there is no going back, I'm forced to begin a new book so I can finally complete the previous one.
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No matter the bad things that happened in past time, let's try to live the best we can now.
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We do not need to proselytise either by our speech or by our writing. We can only do so really with our lives. Let our lives be open books for all to study.
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The migratory phenomenon exists, and Europe will have to face it together. The only alternative is a 'beggar-thy-neighbor' solution, in which countries try to load the problem off on their neighbors.
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We have ministers who are incapable of doing what has been ordered from above because there is no follow up, because there are no consequences. If you are poor man and you steal, your hand is cut off after three offences. But if you are a rich man, nobody will say anything to you.
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I can't remember ever not singing.
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We have more faith in a well-written romance while we are reading it than in common history. The vividness of the representations in the one case more than counterbalances the mere knowledge of the truth of facts in the other.
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I studied because I wanted to know, not because I wanted the world to know I knew.
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It was something I was more interested in myself. When I went to see my sister dance at ballet, I was really into costumes and the arts, and my family was also supportive of whatever me and my sister wanted to do. I would say I pushed myself the most to be into design.
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The seeing of things as they really are - the seeing of a proportion veiled from other eyes (together with the power of expression), is what makes a man an artist. What makes him a great artist is a high fervour of spirit, which produces a superlative, instead of a comparative, clarity of vision.
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Writing Charles Dickens' biography is like writing five biographies.
