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" 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

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

" In 1843, everybody was hungry, unemployed, and conditions were very bad. "

" Dickens belongs to the English people. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

Claire Tomalin

Quiet

Meet

" 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 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. "

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

" 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. "

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

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

" I fell in love with Shakespeare when I was 12, and I read the whole works. Yes, I was precocious. "

" 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. "

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

" You become more tolerant when you become older. You're not interested in rapping people over the knuckles; you're interested in understanding them. "

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

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

" 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. "

" '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. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

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

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

" 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. "

" '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. "

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