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
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
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
People who wrote literary novels about the past probably didn't want them pegged as historical fiction. Certainly that was true in England. — 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
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
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 body aches, his mind is full of pictures of leaves and sky; he does not want to read documents. His miseries, his perplexities have receded, and they will tay away, provided--after food and wine, laughter and… — 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 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
