“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
When you write, you are not either sex. But when you're read you are definitely gendered. — 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
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
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
Busyness, I feel increasingly, is the writer's curse and downfall. You read too much and write too readily, you become cut off… — 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
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 start out, you start talking, you don’t even know what you’re going to say. You don’t even know your way to… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
When I was a child, there was very little money, so I've always been concerned for my financial security, which has meant… — 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
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
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
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
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
“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
“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
“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
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 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
