Claire Tomalin quotes

I enjoyed the whole process of learning and was always happy when autumn came and school or college started up again. (Claire Tomalin)
The book doesn't end when you finish writing it. View quote
Claire Tomalin
All writers behave badly. All people behave badly. View quote
Claire Tomalin
All the people I have written about remain with me - perhaps they are my closest friends. View quote
Claire Tomalin
Biographers use historians more than historians use biographers, although there can be two-way traffic - e.g., the ever-growing production of biographies of women is helping to change the general picture of the past presented by historians. View quote
Claire Tomalin
The young Dickens was so alive, so self-confident, so funny. View quote
Claire Tomalin
When I kept a diary, I realised that it was all moanings and depression, and I think that is quite common. View quote
Claire Tomalin
I have been fascinated by Dickens worshippers who strenuously deny that he did anything wrong in relation to his wife, even though the record is clear that he did. View quote
Claire Tomalin
Historians will handle a much wider range of sources than a biographer and will be covering a broader spectrum of events, time, peoples. View quote
Claire Tomalin
Dickens had more energy than anyone in the world, and he expected his sons to be like him, and they couldn't be. View quote
Claire Tomalin
As he approached his 28th birthday in February 1840, Dickens knew himself to be famous, successful and tired. He needed a rest, and he made up his mind to keep the year free of the pressure of producing monthly installments of yet another long novel. (Claire Tomalin)
Everybody is vulnerable through love of their children. Hostages to fortune. View quote
Claire Tomalin
By the time I went up to Cambridge, I was extremely quiet and well behaved, although I now meet people who remember me as not like that at all. View quote
Claire Tomalin
One of my most vivid memories of the mid-1950s is of crying into a washbasin full of soapy grey baby clothes - there were no washing machines - while my handsome and adored husband was off playing football in the park on Sunday morning with all the delightful young men who had been friends to both of us at Cambridge three years earlier. View quote
Claire Tomalin
Everyone finds their own version of Charles Dickens. The child-victim, the irrepressibly ambitious young man, the reporter, the demonic worker, the tireless walker. The radical, the protector of orphans, helper of the needy, man of good works, the republican. The hater and the lover of America. The giver of parties, the magician, the traveler. View quote
Claire Tomalin
Today's children have very short attention spans because they are being reared on dreadful television programmes which are flickering away in the corner. View quote
Claire Tomalin
I know it sounds pathetic, but I don't know who I am. View quote
Claire Tomalin
I'm interested in history, in trying to relate the past to the present and to understand how people thought about their problems and pleasures. View quote
Claire Tomalin
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. View quote
Claire Tomalin
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. View quote
Claire Tomalin
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. (Claire Tomalin)
Dickens is always full of surprises. View quote
Claire Tomalin
Dickens was a part of how the whole celebration of Christmas as we know it today emerged during the 19th century. View quote
Claire Tomalin
Dickens was very practical and sensible. View quote
Claire Tomalin
Throughout his life, Dickens cared passionately about orphans. View quote
Claire Tomalin