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

All writers behave badly. All people behave badly.

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

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

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

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.

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.