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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. "

Claire Tomalin

Nature

Difficult

Far

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

Claire Tomalin

Closest

About

" I know it sounds pathetic, but I don't know who I am. "

" Writers often feel obliged to adopt some sort of public appearance. "

" 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. "

" I was very priggish as a child. I saved up for a book on medieval English nunneries, for which I was despised by my friends. "

" 'Words and Music' on Radio 3 is always a treat. Actors read passages of poetry and prose interspersed with music, and nobody tells you what it is. Later you can look it up online, but at the time you can't cheat. "

" I belong to the Richmond Concert Society, who put on very good concerts. "

" I was working at the 'Evening Standard' when I heard that there was a job going as deputy literary editor on the 'New Statesman.' I remember thinking, 'That's perfect.' It was three days a week, and I had children, but I could make that work - so I applied for it and got it. "

" Dickens belongs to the English people. "

" I think people are always saying things are 'over.' Fiction has been regularly 'over' since the 19th century. "

" 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. "

" I always feel sad when I come to the end of a book. "

" I didn't start writing my own books until I was 40. "

" The book doesn't end when you finish writing it. "

" I'm usually convinced that what I'm working on is a total disaster. "

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

" Dickens was very practical and sensible. "

" I've behaved badly in my life. I hope I haven't behaved as badly as Dickens! In a way, if you're a woman, you're not in a position to behave as badly, because you don't have the economic power. "

" I would like to have a more social life than I have. "

Claire Tomalin

Social Life

Life

" 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. "

" Dickens is a lover of human beings; a relisher of human beings. "

" I have been left-wing always, from childhood. "

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

" My life was a sort of series of random disasters. "

" Dickens is always full of surprises. "

" 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. "

" I sometimes think that, since I started writing biographies, I've had more of a life in books than I have had in my real life. "

" 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 would perhaps like to go back to writing small books about obscure people. "

" '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. "