People say, 'You're like Dickens', but I'm not like Dickens. Zadie Smith is a Dickensian writer because she's writing about society now, just as Dickens was writing about his society.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Dickens belongs to the English people.
I had a kind of Dickensian childhood.
I was terribly upset not to be in 'Dickensian,' so I pretend to look down on it. The part I should have played, Mrs. Gamp, is done brilliantly by Pauline Collins, but I entered this world for no other reason than to play that part.
The whole world knows Dickens, his London and his characters.
Dickens is a lover of human beings; a relisher of human beings.
Taking the humour out of Dickens, it's not Dickens any more.
Dickens is a very underrated writer at the moment. Everyone in his time admired him but I think right now he's not spoken of enough.
I'm not a Dickens guy. In grad school I had to take at least one course on the Victorians, so I took The Later Dickens, because that was what there was.
I wrote the Dickens book because I loved Dickens, not because I felt a kinship with him, but after writing the book it seemed to me that there was at least one similarity between us and that was that Dickens loved to write and wrote with the ease and conviction of breathing. Me, too.
I love Dickens. I love the way he sets a scene.