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

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

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

" People who attack biography choose as their models vulgar and offensive biography. You could equally attack novels or poems by choosing bad poems or novels. "

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

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

" I'm usually convinced that what I'm working on is a total disaster. "

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

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

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

" 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 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. "

" 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. "

" Dickens was very practical and sensible. "

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

" I always try to travel light. "

" 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. "

" All the people I have written about remain with me - perhaps they are my closest friends. "

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" Biographies are, in their nature, far more difficult to make into films than novels, because novels come with plots constructed and dialogue written, whereas I don't invent dialogue for my subjects or plot their lives for them. "

" Dickens belongs to the English people. "

" 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. "

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

" When I wrote about Mary Wollstonecraft, I found that here she was, in the late 18th century, going to work for the 'Analytical Review.' What was the 'Analytical Review?' It was a magazine that dealt with politics and literature. "

" '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. "

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