Claire Tomalin

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. ”

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. ”

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

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 life. ”

The young Dickens was so alive, so self-confident, so funny. ”

I know it sounds pathetic, but I don't know who I am. ”

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. ”

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

Essentially, I spent most of my childhood with my mother and my older sister, and I suppose I had rather a romantic vision of how things might be if there were men around; I saw myself in a country house with six children and a garden. That has never been achieved - and I still regret it. ”