Hilary Mantel

By the tits of Holy Agnes

— Hilary Mantel

“What for do we nail down the dead?”

— Hilary Mantel

“Arrange your face”

— Hilary Mantel

“By the hairy balls of Jesus”

— Hilary Mantel

Those who are made can be unmade.

— Hilary Mantel

“I think it's just people. They always hope there may be something better.”

— Hilary Mantel

“What was England, before Wolsey? A little offshore island, poor and cold.”

— Hilary Mantel

“If life is a chain of gold, sometimes God hangs a charm on it.”

— Hilary Mantel

“...there is an art to being in a hurry but not showing it." 390”

— Hilary Mantel

[T]he heart is like any other organ, you can weigh it on a scale.

— Hilary Mantel

For historians, creative writers provide a kind of pornography.

— Hilary Mantel

Beneath every history, another history.

— Hilary Mantel

“92, '93, '94. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity or Death.”

— Hilary Mantel

“He glances up again, and recognizes Gregory’s design. It is a system of holy simplicity: big papers on the bottom, small ones…

— Hilary Mantel

People will identify with a persecuted minority without asking themselves what they are identifying with.

— Hilary Mantel

“At Smithfield Frith is being shoveled up, his youth, his grace, his learning and his beauty: a compaction of mud, grease, charred…

— Hilary Mantel

“Edward Seymour says, ‘You should have been a bishop, Cromwell.’ ‘Edward,’ he says, ‘I should have been Pope.”

— Hilary Mantel

“Possibly it’s something women do: spend time imagining what it’s like to be each other. One can learn from that, he thinks.”

— Hilary Mantel

“Laclos thought, how about a one-way ticket to Pennsylvania? You’d enjoy life among the Quakers. Alternatively, how about a nice dip in…

— Hilary Mantel

You learn nothing about men by snubbing them and crushing their pride. You must ask them what it is they can do…

— Hilary Mantel

When you become published and become a reviewer, piles of books come along and you are pushed by fashion and what you…

— Hilary Mantel

“The main thing is, the constraints have come off style. What we are saying now is that the Revolution does not proceed…

— Hilary Mantel

“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

“Ask Robespierre. Ask the man with the conscience which is more important, your friend or your country— ask him how he weighs…

— Hilary Mantel

“But the winter king, less occupied, will begin to think about his conscience. He will begin to think about his pride. He…

— Hilary Mantel

“There are some strange cold people in this world. It is priests, I think...Training themselves out of natural feeling. They mean it…

— Hilary Mantel

“He is not in the habit of explaining himself. He is not in the habit of discussing his successes. But whenever good…

— Hilary Mantel

“I was just going over London Bridge and I saw someone had attacked the Madonna's statue. Knocked off the baby's head.’ ‘That…

— Hilary Mantel

It's complementary. It's fairly clear where the boundaries are. When I start telling you the contents of his head, I am making…

— Hilary Mantel

“He runs his eye along the row of knives in their racks, the cleavers for splitting bones. He picks one up, looks…

— Hilary Mantel

I spend a great deal of time on research, on finding all the available accounts of a scene or incident, finding out…

— Hilary Mantel

“He wants to say, because Anne is not a carnal being, she is a calculating being, with a cold slick brain at…

— Hilary Mantel

Read Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande. Then do what it says, including the tasks you think are impossible. You will particularly…

— Hilary Mantel

“Thomas More still has some credit with the king. And he has written him a letter, saying,” he manages to smile, “that…

— Hilary Mantel

“Richard goes with a bob of the head but without another word. It seems he interprets 'don't tell anybody' as 'don't tell…

— Hilary Mantel

“Cranmer says, ‘We will try again with More. At least, if he refuses, he should give his reasons.’ He swears under his…

— Hilary Mantel

“They say that at Thomas More’s trial, Master Secretary here followed the jury to their deliberations, and when they were seated he…

— Hilary Mantel

“Oh, by the thrice-beshitten shroud of Lazarus!”

— Hilary Mantel

My first two novels were very black comedies.

— Hilary Mantel

“It is a sure sign of troubled minds, the habit of quotation.”

— Hilary Mantel