“By the time I went up to Cambridge, I was extremely quiet and well beh...” — Claire Tomalin Quote

“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.”

“I was very priggish as a child. I saved up for a book on medieval English nunneries, for which I was despised by my friends.”

“I think it's about as likely Jane Austen was gay as that she was found out to be a man.”

“Writing Charles Dickens' biography is like writing five biographies.”

“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.”

“All writers behave badly. All people behave badly.”

“I don't give my employees hours - some of them come in at 7 A.M., some at 10 A.M., some stay until 6 P.M. or midnight. They have that freedom to come and go as they wish, although they all put in more hours than your 9 to 5.”

“Although we had been led to believe our mission was suicidal, Russia's intrigue was irresistible. Almost twice the size of Australia, it spans 11 time zones from the Baltic to the Pacific.”

“If you are not making any mistakes, you are being excessively risk-averse. Investing involves risk, and that means you will occasionally be wrong. And although it is okay to be wrong, it is not okay to stay wrong.”

“Although I am small, ugly and dirty, I am highly ambitious, and at the slightest flattery, I immediately start to strut like a turkey.”

“I thought 'Deliverance' was a very good film. But it didn't have the success financially that 'Smokey and the Bandit' did, although that film made more money than 'Star Wars' in the first week.”