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" 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. "

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

" Biographers search for traces, for evidence of activity, for signs of movement, for letters, for diaries, for photographs. "

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

" Today's children have very short attention spans because they are being reared on dreadful television programmes which are flickering away in the corner. "

" Because my father is French, my first school was the Lycee Francais de Londres in Kensington. "

" Dickens was very practical and sensible. "

" Writing Charles Dickens' biography is like writing five biographies. "

" It's an odd situation: I could not write about someone for whom I felt no affection or admiration. "

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

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

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

" '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. "

" All writers behave badly. All people behave badly. "

" I always try to travel light. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I think it's quite normal for people to have love affairs. "

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Dickens had more energy than anyone in the world, and he expected his sons to be like him, and they couldn't be. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" After Shakespeare, Dickens is the great creator of characters, multiple characters. "

" Throughout his life, Dickens cared passionately about orphans. "

" 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. "

" When I kept a diary, I realised that it was all moanings and depression, and I think that is quite common. "

" '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. "