I would perhaps like to go back to writing small books about obscure people. — Claire Tomalin Copy Share Image
I think it's about as likely Jane Austen was gay as that she was found out to be a man. — Claire Tomalin Copy Share Image
I continually get more information about a subject after the book has been published. — Claire Tomalin Copy Share Image
All the people I have written about remain with me - perhaps they are my closest friends. — Claire Tomalin Copy Share Image
It's an odd situation: I could not write about someone for whom I felt no affection or admiration. — Claire Tomalin Copy Share Image
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… — Claire Tomalin Copy Share Image
I'm interested in history, in trying to relate the past to the present and to understand how people thought about their problems… — Claire Tomalin Copy Share Image
When I wrote about Mary Wollstonecraft, I found that here she was, in the late 18th century, going to work for the… — Claire Tomalin Copy Share Image
The thing I love about Rome is that is has so many layers. In it, you can follow anything that interests you:… — Claire Tomalin Copy Share Image
Why do we read biography? Why do we choose to write it? Because we are human beings, programmed to be curious about… — Claire Tomalin Copy Share Image
In 2007, several musicologists contacted me at about the same time, expressing interest in the work of the mysterious Muriel Herbert, a… — Claire Tomalin Copy Share Image
“Poor Nelly, she was not to know that fashions in sin change as much as other fashions.” — Claire Tomalin Copy Share Image
I continually get more information about a subject after the book has been published. — Claire Tomalin Copy Share Image
I was working at the 'Evening Standard' when I heard that there was a job going as deputy literary editor on the 'New Statesman.'… — Claire Tomalin Copy Share Image
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… — Claire Tomalin Copy Share Image
Simon Russell Beale is an incomparable speaker of Shakespeare and a superb all-round actor. — Claire Tomalin Copy Share Image
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… — Claire Tomalin Copy Share Image
Poetry was one of the things that interested me most as I was growing up. I used to write it in my head all… — Claire Tomalin Copy Share Image
Biographers search for traces, for evidence of activity, for signs of movement, for letters, for diaries, for photographs. — Claire Tomalin Copy Share Image
You become more tolerant when you become older. You're not interested in rapping people over the knuckles; you're interested in understanding them. — Claire Tomalin Copy Share Image
