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
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
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
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
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
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
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
“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
“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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
'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
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
“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
“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
“When it was time to write, and he took his pen in his hand, he never thought of consequences; he thought 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
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
