Claire Tomalin Quotes
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When you live with Dickens for years, reading him and trying to present him as faithfully as you can, you can't fail to love the man - so the shock of his bad behaviour is considerable, even when you know it is coming.
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Dickens had more energy than anyone in the world, and he expected his sons to be like him, and they couldn't be.
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Why do we read biography? Why do we choose to write it? Because we are human beings, programmed to be curious about other human beings, and to experience something of their lives. This has always been so - look at the Bible, crammed with biographies, very popular reading.
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When I wrote about Mary Wollstonecraft, I found that here she was, in the late 18th century, going to work for the 'Analytical Review.' What was the 'Analytical Review?' It was a magazine that dealt with politics and literature.
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In 2007, several musicologists contacted me at about the same time, expressing interest in the work of the mysterious Muriel Herbert, a few of whose songs they had come across.
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It's an odd situation: I could not write about someone for whom I felt no affection or admiration.
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Dickens is a lover of human beings; a relisher of human beings.
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'Philomena' was even better than I had expected. I was so pleased to see the evil Irish nuns thoroughly exposed, and I thought Judi Dench gave a flawless performance, as did everybody else.
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The young Dickens was so alive, so self-confident, so funny.
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I think it's quite normal for people to have love affairs.
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Essentially, I spent most of my childhood with my mother and my older sister, and I suppose I had rather a romantic vision of how things might be if there were men around; I saw myself in a country house with six children and a garden. That has never been achieved - and I still regret it.
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Writers often feel obliged to adopt some sort of public appearance.
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Because my father is French, my first school was the Lycee Francais de Londres in Kensington.
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If I'm in a state about a book, I'll get up at 6 A.M. and write before breakfast, but usually I'll start afterwards and then work a full day with a break for lunch.
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Biographies are, in their nature, far more difficult to make into films than novels, because novels come with plots constructed and dialogue written, whereas I don't invent dialogue for my subjects or plot their lives for them.
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When dealing with a subject who is dead, you have this feeling of being God. You know who they're going to marry, when they're going to die. It's strange to feel so omniscient.
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I think it's about as likely Jane Austen was gay as that she was found out to be a man.
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Writers don't make good spouses. When I am writing, I'm not a good wife. I shut myself away, and all my emotions are directed towards what I'm trying to write.
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Dickens belongs to the English people.
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Writing Charles Dickens' biography is like writing five biographies.
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Dickens is always full of surprises.
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As a young man, Dickens worked as a reporter in the House of Commons and hated it. He felt that all politicians spoke with the same voice.
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Dickens was very practical and sensible.
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Most writers can tell stories of how their books failed to be made into films.