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" My life was a sort of series of random disasters. "

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

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

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

" 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. "

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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 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. "

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

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

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

" '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. "

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

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

" 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 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. "

" I would like to have a more social life than I have. "

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" When dealing with a subject who is dead, you have this feeling of being God. You know who they're going to marry, when they're going to die. It's strange to feel so omniscient. "