Hilary Mantel Quotes
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Imagine the consequences of having the first woman prime minister who is the milk snatcher. Margaret Thatcher takes away the nourishment of the nation.
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He turns to the painting. "I fear Mark was right." "Who is Mark?" "A silly little boy who runs after George Boleyn. I once heard him say I looked like a murderer." Gregory says, "Did you not know?
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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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Memory isn't a theme; it's part of the human condition.
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But an experienced reader is also a self-aware and critical reader. I can't remember ever reading a story without judging it.
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I dislike pastiche; it attracts attention to the language only.
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Write a book you'd like to read. If you wouldn't read it, why would anybody else? Don't write for a perceived audience or market. It may well have vanished by the time your book's ready.
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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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I think the monarchy today is. . . mildly interesting and largely harmless. I can't find I can get very heated about it. In the next couple of generations, it is bound to go.
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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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Though I have never thought of myself as a book collector, there are shelves in our house browsed so often, on so many rainy winter nights, that the contents have seeped into me as if by osmosis.
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And if a diversion is needed, why not arrest a general? Arthur Dillon is a friend of eminent deputies, a contender for the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Northern Front; he has proved himself at Valmy and in a halfdozen actions since. In the National Assembly he was a liberal; now he is a republican. Isn't it then logical that he should be thrown into gaol, July 1, on suspicion of passing military secrets to the enemy?
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When I began to read as an adult, my first big enthusiasm was Evelyn Waugh. I read almost exclusively novelists of a generation back. I did the Russians, then I started getting more up to date.
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I believe this was Margaret Thatcher estimate of the voter: "These people are so stupid that they will vote for me because they think I know how to run the household."
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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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He thinks, I remembered you, Thomas More, but you didn't remember me. You never even saw me coming.
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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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So many years of preparation, for what was called adult life: was it for this?
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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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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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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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Some of these things are true and some of them lies. But they are all good stories.
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The more facts I can have, the better. I can operate very nicely between them, but I am not very good at making things up. I am not sure how ethical it is.
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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.