Hilary Mantel Quotes
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Florence and Milan had given him ideas more flexible than those of people who'd stayed at home.
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History is always changing behind us, and the past changes a little every time we retell it.
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Read Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande. Then do what it says, including the tasks you think are impossible. You will particularly hate the advice to write first thing in the morning, but if you can manage it, it might well be the best thing you ever do for yourself. This book is about becoming a writer from the inside out. Many later advice manuals derive from it. You don't really need any others, though if you want to boost your confidence, "how to" books seldom do any harm. You can kick-start a whole book with some little writing exercise.
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There is so much else in the world that is more interesting than monarchy.
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If you get stuck, get away from your desk. Take a walk, take a bath, go to sleep, make a pie, draw, listen to music, meditate, exercise; whatever you do, don't just stick there scowling at the problem. But don't make telephone calls or go to a party; if you do, other people's words will pour in where your lost words should be.
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You don't get on by being original. You don't get on by being bright. You don't get on by being strong. You get on by being a subtle crook.
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History offers us vicarious experience. It allows the youngest student to possess the ground equally with his elders; without a knowledge of history to give him a context for present events, he is at the mercy of every social misdiagnosis handed to him.
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She is very plain. What does Henry see in her?'" "He thinks she's stupid. He finds it restful.
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The worship of Thomas More goes beyond Catholics.
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It's complementary. It's fairly clear where the boundaries are. When I start telling you the contents of his head, I am making it up. But I try to make it up based on what is on the record. So even my wildest speculations on Thomas Cromwell will have a root somewhere.
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It is better not to try people, not to force them to desperation. Make them prosper; out of superfluidity, they will be generous. Full bellies breed gentle manners. The pinch of famine makes monsters.
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You can have a silence full of words. A lute retains, in its bowl, the notes it has played. The viol, in its strings, holds a concord. A shriveled petal can hold its scent, a prayer can rattle with curses; an empty house, when the owners have gone out, can still be loud with ghosts.
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I've got so many ideas, and sometimes the more exhausted my body gets, the more active my mind gets.
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So many years of preparation, for what was called adult life: was it for this?
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It is all very well planning what you will do in six months, what you will do in a year, but it’s no good at all if you don’t have a plan for tomorrow.
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I can't think of any male politician who magnetizes love and hate - mainly hate - the way Margaret Thatcher did.
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Insight cannot be taken back. You cannot return to the moment you were in before.
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I am not a historian. I don't see what I do as being a rival to biography.
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People who wrote literary novels about the past probably didn't want them pegged as historical fiction. Certainly that was true in England.
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[H]ope takes you by the throat like a stranger, it makes your heart leap.
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I think I would have been a reasonably good lawyer. I have a faculty for making sense of mountains of information.
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He is careful to deny responsibility for September, but he does not, you notice, condemn the killings. He also refrains from killing words, sparing Roland and Buzot, as if they were beneath his notice. August 10 was illegal, he says; so too was the taking of the Bastille. What account can we take of that, in revolution? It is the nature of revolutions to break laws. We are not justices of the peace; we are legislators to a new world.
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Watching live actors onstage, in something that changes night by night, real people picking up cues from each other, it concentrates you on the process rather than the result.
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You mustn't stand about. Come home with me to dinner.’ ‘No.’ More shakes his head. ‘I would rather be blown around on the river and go home hungry. If I could trust you only to put food in my mouth – but you will put words into it.