I do not think that one is likely to write a good biography unless one feels some sympathy with its subject.

[On writing biography:] If you wish to see a person you must not start by seeing through him.

Behind each biography there should always be a rich treasury of unformulated knowledge, a tapestry that has not been unrolled.

I write because, exacting as it may be to do so, it is still more difficult to refrain, and because - however conscious of one's limitations one may be - there is always at the back of one's mind an irrational hope that this next book will be different: it will be the rounded achievement, the complete fulfilment. It never has been: yet I am still writing.

Just as, in travel, one may miss seeing the sunset because one cannot find the ticket-office or is afraid of missing the train, so in even the closest human relationships a vast amount of time and of affection is drained away in minor misunderstandings, missed opportunities, and failures in consideration or understanding.

while it is certainly the biographer's business to describe the foibles, passions and idiosyncrasies which make his subject a person, his work will be very meagre if these individual traits are not also seen as part of a universal drama - for each man's life is also the story of Everyman.

We are being governed by the dregs of the nation - and their brutality is so capricious that no one can feel certain that he will be safe tomorrow.