I'm a very organised and rational and linear thinker, and you have to stop all that to write a novel. — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
When you write, you are not either sex. But when you're read you are definitely gendered. — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
“When you're writing historical fiction, you are always looking for the untold story. You're looking for what has been repressed politically, or… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
Writing comes from that territory of being invalidated. But I had a sense of purpose, too. I wanted to stop apologising for… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
When you are writing laws you are testing words to find their utmost power. Like spells, they have to make things happen… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
I think if I hadn't become a writer I would just have suppressed that part of my personality. I think I would… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
“For historians, creative writers provide a kind of pornography. They break the rules and admit the thing that is imagined, but is… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
Like every writer, I'm drawn by unlikely juxtapositions, precisely-dated and once-only collisions between people from different worlds. — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
There are plenty of books that tell you how to become a writer, but not one that suggests how, if you want… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
I think it took me half a page of 'Wolf Hall' to think: 'This is the novel I should have been writing… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
“It's the living that turn and chase the dead. The long bones and skulls are tumbled from their shrouds, and words like… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
Life being so short, and the possible books to write so many, it's good to function by night as well as by… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
The writer I adore is Ivy Compton-Burnett.I couldn't get more than a few pages in when I first read her. In many… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
My first book was a historical novel. I started writing in 1974. In those days, historical novels meant ladies with swelling bosoms… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
When you have committed enough words to paper, you feel you have a spine stiff enough to stand up in the wind.… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
The experienced writer says to the anguished novice: 'Just do it; get something, anything, on to the screen or page, just establish… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
Fiction isn't made by scraping the bones of topicality for the last shreds and sinews, to be processed into mechanically recovered prose.… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
Writers displace their anxiety on to the tools of the trade. It's better to say that you haven't got the right pencil… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
Read Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande. Then do what it says, including the tasks you think are impossible. You will particularly… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
“He knows different now. It's the living that chase the dead. The long bones and skulls are tumbled from their shrouds, and… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
When I came to write my Thomas Cromwell books, I moved onto the center ground of English history, but I was never… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
“Evidence is always partial. Facts are not truth, though they are part of it – information is not knowledge. And history is… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
As a writer, you owe it to yourself not to get stuck in a rut of looking at the world in a… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
'Show up at the desk' is one of the first rules of writing, but for 'Wolf Hall' I was about 30 years late. — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
“Leases, writes, statutes, all are written to be read and each person reads them by the light of self-interest.” — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
“The prose,” Robespierre said. “It’s so clean, no conceits, no show, no wit. He means every word. Formerly, you see, he meant… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
You think you're writing one historical novel and it turns into three, and I'm quite used to a short story turning into… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
For many imaginative writers, working for the press is a fact of their life. But it's best not to like it too… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
Sometimes people ask, 'Does writing make you happy?' But I think that's beside the point. It makes you agitated, and continually in… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
“A printing press that can write its own books? A mind that thinks about itself? If I don’t have it, at least… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
In my 20s I was in constant pain from undiagnosed endometriosis. With no prospect of a cure, I decided I needed a… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
If I am feeling broken, I can pick up one of [Ivy Compton-Burnett] books and the next morning I can write again.… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
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… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
“I do no damage. This is damage, this.” He picked up a paper from Camille’s desk. “I can’t read your writing, but… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
If you have a good story idea, don't assume it must form a prose narrative. It may work better as a play,… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
“The maid found a handkerchief of hers, under the bed in which she had died. A ring that had been missing turned… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
Back in my 20s, when I wrote 'A Place of Greater Safety,' the French Revolution novel, I thought, 'I'll always have to… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
Writers do not want to think they are less rational than other people, and at the mercy of compulsions, but in their… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
People will identify with a persecuted minority without asking themselves what they are identifying with. — Hilary Mantel Copy Share
“The hunter is among the most innocent of men; living in the moment makes him feel pure. When he returns in the evening, his… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share
“But what would happen … I mean, what would be so awful … if they did meet up?” “Why, it would be like the… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share
When you have committed enough words to paper, you feel you have a spine stiff enough to stand up in the wind. But when… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share
At New Year's he had given Anne a present of silver forks with handles of rock crystal. He hopes she will use them to… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share
“The story of my own childhood is a complicated sentence that I am always trying to finish, to finish and put behind me. It… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share
“He wants to say, because Anne is not a carnal being, she is a calculating being, with a cold slick brain at work behind… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share
“Come to that, don't pay out good money for horoscopes. If things are going to go badly for you, is that what you need… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share
“But my sins are my strength, he thinks; the sins I have done, that others have not even found the opportunity of committing. I… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share
“Mirabeau: “If you have been told to clear us from this hall, you must ask for orders to use force. We shall leave our… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share
“Cardinal Campeggio has implored Katherine to bow to the king's will, accept that her marriage is invalid and retire to a convent. Certainly, she… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share
“Sion calls Anne an eel, he calls her a slippery dipper from the slime, and he remembers what the cardinal had called her: my… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share
I spend a great deal of time on research, on finding all the available accounts of a scene or incident, finding out all the… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share
“At the front, people die for their mistakes. Why should politicians be more gently treated? They made the war. They deserve a dozen deaths,… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share
![“If I am feeling broken, I can pick up one of [Ivy Compton-Burnett] books and the next morning I can write again. It puts my mechanism back.” quote by Hilary Mantel](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/927/hilary-mantel-440_book_if-i-am-feeling-broken-i-can-pick-up-one_1647638.jpg)
