Writing Charles Dickens' biography is like writing five biographies. Claire Tomalin More Quotes by Claire Tomalin More Quotes From Claire Tomalin I enjoyed the whole process of learning and was always happy when autumn came and school or college started up again. Claire Tomalin autumn college school 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. Claire Tomalin tired successful years I've been trying to garden all my life - it just happens that I haven't had a big garden...until the past few years. Claire Tomalin garden past years All writers behave badly. All people behave badly. Claire Tomalin behave people Biographers use historians more than historians use biographers, although there can be two-way traffic - e.g., the ever-growing production of biographies of women is helping to change the general picture of the past presented by historians. Claire Tomalin use two past All the people I have written about remain with me - perhaps they are my closest friends. Claire Tomalin closest-friends closest people The young Dickens was so alive, so self-confident, so funny. Claire Tomalin alive self young 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. Claire Tomalin remember quiet people Everybody is vulnerable through love of their children. Hostages to fortune. Claire Tomalin vulnerable fortune children One of my most vivid memories of the mid-1950s is of crying into a washbasin full of soapy grey baby clothes - there were no washing machines - while my handsome and adored husband was off playing football in the park on Sunday morning with all the delightful young men who had been friends to both of us at Cambridge three years earlier. Claire Tomalin morning football men memories 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. Claire Tomalin lunch money life book My life was a sort of series of random disasters. Claire Tomalin disasters random my-life life 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. Claire Tomalin own good man america 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. Claire Tomalin you architecture love culture 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. Claire Tomalin look experience reading bible I fell in love with Shakespeare when I was 12, and I read the whole works. Yes, I was precocious. Claire Tomalin read yes whole love Historians will handle a much wider range of sources than a biographer and will be covering a broader spectrum of events, time, peoples. Claire Tomalin will handle events time Poetry was one of the things that interested me most as I was growing up. I used to write it in my head all the time. I still think the very greatest pleasure in life is to write a poem. Claire Tomalin me poetry time life 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. Claire Tomalin choose bad you people I continually get more information about a subject after the book has been published. Claire Tomalin more get information book
