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" 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. "

Claire Tomalin

Job

New

Thinking

Related Quotes:

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

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

" 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. "

" 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'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 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. "

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

Claire Tomalin

Been

Book

" Dickens was very practical and sensible. "

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

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

" Dickens belongs to the English people. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Dickens is always full of surprises. "

" 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. "

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

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

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

" 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. "

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

Claire Tomalin

Dickens

Writing

" '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. "

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

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

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

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

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

Claire Tomalin

World

Energy

" When you live with Dickens for years, reading him and trying to present him as faithfully as you can, you can't fail to love the man - so the shock of his bad behaviour is considerable, even when you know it is coming. "