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" I had forgotten until I looked up old notes that I sold the film rights of my first book, a life of Mary Wollstonecraft: there was a lunch, a contract, a small sum of money, then nothing. "

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

Claire Tomalin

Short

Today

Attention

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" I thought it was a glorious thing to be a critic and to be a literary editor, and one was really doing something that mattered: to keep up standards, to take books seriously. "

Claire Tomalin

Standards

Thought

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" Dickens was a part of how the whole celebration of Christmas as we know it today emerged during the 19th century. "

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

" 'A Christmas Carol' has been described as the most perfect of Dickens's works and as a quintessential heart-warming story, and it is certainly the most popular. "

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

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

" I continually get more information about a subject after the book has been published. "

Claire Tomalin

Been

Book

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

" It's a difficult thing to lose a child, a grown-up child. "

" '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. "

" The thing I love about Rome is that is has so many layers. In it, you can follow anything that interests you: town planning, architecture, churches or culture. It's a city rich in antiquity and early Christian treasures, and just endlessly fascinating. There's nowhere else like it. "

" Most writers can tell stories of how their books failed to be made into films. "

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

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

Claire Tomalin

Same

Time

" Dickens never joined a political party nor put forward a political programme. He was a writer who rightly saw his power as coming through his fiction. "

" 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. "

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

" '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. "