English - Author | June 20, 1933 -
I thought it was a glorious thing to be a critic and to be a literary editor, and one was really doing something that mattered: to keep up standards, to take books seriously.
Claire Tomalin
ThoughtDoingSeriouslyStandardsUp
When I wrote about Mary Wollstonecraft, I found that here she was, in the late 18th century, going to work for the 'Analytical Review.' What was the 'Analytical Review?' It was a magazine that dealt with politics and literature.
WorkPoliticsLiteratureLateShe
I have been left-wing always, from childhood.
ChildhoodAlwaysBeenLeft-Wing
Dickens is always full of surprises.
AlwaysSurprisesFullDickens
Throughout his life, Dickens cared passionately about orphans.
LifeHisAboutOrphansPassionately
As a young man, Dickens worked as a reporter in the House of Commons and hated it. He felt that all politicians spoke with the same voice.
ManVoiceHouseYoungYoung ManHe
Dickens never joined a political party nor put forward a political programme. He was a writer who rightly saw his power as coming through his fiction.
PowerForwardPoliticalPartyNever
Because my father is French, my first school was the Lycee Francais de Londres in Kensington.
FatherSchoolFirstBecauseFrench
Most writers can tell stories of how their books failed to be made into films.
TellBooksMadeMostStoriesHow
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.
LifeMoneyLunchSmallBookNothing
Biographies are, in their nature, far more difficult to make into films than novels, because novels come with plots constructed and dialogue written, whereas I don't invent dialogue for my subjects or plot their lives for them.
NatureMoreDifficultDialoguePlot
Biographers search for traces, for evidence of activity, for signs of movement, for letters, for diaries, for photographs.
SearchLettersSignsMovementTraces
Copyright © 2024 QuotesDict Claire Tomalin quotes