Writing Charles Dickens' biography is like writing five biographies. — 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
People who attack biography choose as their models vulgar and offensive biography. You could equally attack novels or poems by choosing bad… — 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
I continually get more information about a subject after the book has been published. — Claire Tomalin Copy Share
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
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
Simon Russell Beale is an incomparable speaker of Shakespeare and a superb all-round actor. — Claire Tomalin Copy Share
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
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
Biographers search for traces, for evidence of activity, for signs of movement, for letters, for diaries, for photographs. — Claire Tomalin Copy Share
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
Dickens never joined a political party nor put forward a political programme. He was a writer who rightly saw his power as coming through… — Claire Tomalin Copy Share
