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

Throughout his life, Dickens cared passionately about orphans.

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.

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

In 1843, everybody was hungry, unemployed, and conditions were very bad.

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

All the people I have written about remain with me - perhaps they are my closest friends.

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.

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.