Claire Tomalin Quotations

I think it's about as likely Jane Austen was gay as that she was found out to be a man.

Everybody is vulnerable through love of their children. Hostages to fortune.

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.

The young Dickens was so alive, so self-confident, so funny.

All the people I have written about remain with me - perhaps they are my closest friends.

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.

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.

I enjoyed the whole process of learning and was always happy when autumn came and school or college started up again.

All writers behave badly. All people behave badly.

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.