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" 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. "

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" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" '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. "

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

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

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

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

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

" Poetry was one of the things that interested me most as I was growing up. I used to write it in my head all the time. I still think the very greatest pleasure in life is to write a poem. "

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

" I always try to travel light. "

" 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 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. "

" '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. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" Historians will handle a much wider range of sources than a biographer and will be covering a broader spectrum of events, time, peoples. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Simon Russell Beale is an incomparable speaker of Shakespeare and a superb all-round actor. "

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

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

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