Most writers can tell stories of how their books failed to be made into films. — Claire Tomalin Copy Share Image
I would perhaps like to go back to writing small books about obscure people. — 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 sometimes think that, since I started writing biographies, I've had more of a life in books than I have had in… — 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 had forgotten until I looked up old notes that I sold the film rights of my first book, a life of… — Claire Tomalin Copy Share Image
I fell in love with Shakespeare when I was 12, and I read the whole works. Yes, I was precocious. — Claire Tomalin Copy Share Image
I thought it was a glorious thing to be a critic and to be a literary editor, and one was really doing… — Claire Tomalin Copy Share Image
Biographies are, in their nature, far more difficult to make into films than novels, because novels come with plots constructed and dialogue… — 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
I was very priggish as a child. I saved up for a book on medieval English nunneries, for which I was despised… — 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
“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
