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

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" 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 belong to the Richmond Concert Society, who put on very good concerts. "

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

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

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

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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

" Dickens is always full of surprises. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

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

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "