I once stole a book. It was really just the once, and at the time I called it borrowing. It was 1970,… — 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
I was the subject of an experiment in love. I lived my life under her gaze, undergoing certain trials for her so… — 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
Though I have never thought of myself as a book collector, there are shelves in our house browsed so often, on so… — 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
“The page of an accounts book is there for your use, like a love poem. It’s not there for you to nod… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
For myself, the only way I know how to make a book is to construct it like a collage: a bit of… — 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 believe it’s fine to give up books even after a page; there’s so much to read in the world that will… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
When I began to read as an adult, I read almost exclusively novelists of a generation back. I did the Russians, then… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
Suppose within each book there is another book, and within every letter on every page another volume constantly unfolding; but these volumes… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
Some readers read a book as if it were an instruction manual, expecting to understand everything first time, but of course when… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
When you become published and become a reviewer, piles of books come along and you are pushed by fashion and what you… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
Sometimes you buy a book, powerfully drawn to it, but then it just sits on the shelf. Maybe you flick through it,… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
People will identify with a persecuted minority without asking themselves what they are identifying with. — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
