Quotes by Claire Tomalin

“He saw the world more vividly than other people, and reacted to what he saw with laughter, horror, indignation, and sometimes sobs.”

“Being himself was more exhausting than impersonating a stage character.”

“He could take on anything and everything, it seemed, rather than leave himself time to reflect on his dissatisfaction with his life and what he might do about it.”

“Dickens was a part of how the whole celebration of Christmas as we know it today emerged during the 19th century.”

“'A Christmas Carol' has been described as the most perfect of Dickens's works and as a quintessential heart-warming story, and it is certainly the most popular.”

“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 prod...”

“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 ...”

“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 ear...”

“I enjoyed the whole process of learning and was always happy when autumn came and school or college started up again.”

“I always try to travel light.”

“I always feel sad when I come to the end of a book.”

“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...”

“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.”

“'Words and Music' on Radio 3 is always a treat. Actors read passages of poetry and prose interspersed with music, and nobody tells you what it is. Later you can look it up online, but at the time y...”

“Boarding schools for girls were not hard to find in the 1780s, not least because keeping a school was one of the very few ways in which a woman could hope to earn a respectable living, but accounts...”

“... The Diary is best known for his reporting of the national disasters that struck England while he was keeping it: the great plague of 1665, the great fire of London in 1666, the Dutch attack on ...”

“... There was a great demand for engravings of his portrait, and his head was being modeled by an admiring sculptor.This was Dickens nearly halfway through his life: he was twenty-eight in February...”

“With an English degree I found literary work, in publishing, mostly reading manuscripts, then in reviewing, occasional broadcasting and literary editing. Only in the early 1970s, as I approached fo...”

“Tomalin herself examines the novels with the confident judgments of a critic, not the hedged and sometimes overawed appraisals of a scholar. Appreciative of Hardy’s genius, she still finds his body...”