Writing Quotes by Hilary Mantel

I'm a very organised and rational and linear thinker, and you have to stop all that to write a novel.

— Hilary Mantel

For historians, creative writers provide a kind of pornography.

— Hilary Mantel

When you write, you are not either sex. But when you're read you are definitely gendered.

— Hilary Mantel

Fear of commitment lies behind the fear of writing.

— Hilary Mantel

“Leases, writes, statutes, all are written to be read and each person reads them by the light of self-interest.”

— Hilary Mantel

'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

“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

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

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

I think it took me half a page of 'Wolf Hall' to think: 'This is the novel I should have been writing…

— Hilary Mantel

As a writer, you owe it to yourself not to get stuck in a rut of looking at the world in a…

— Hilary Mantel

“For historians, creative writers provide a kind of pornography. They break the rules and admit the thing that is imagined, but is…

— Hilary Mantel

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

“The maid found a handkerchief of hers, under the bed in which she had died. A ring that had been missing turned…

— Hilary Mantel

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

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

The experienced writer says to the anguished novice: 'Just do it; get something, anything, on to the screen or page, just establish…

— Hilary Mantel

When you have committed enough words to paper, you feel you have a spine stiff enough to stand up in the wind.…

— Hilary Mantel

My first book was a historical novel. I started writing in 1974. In those days, historical novels meant ladies with swelling bosoms…

— Hilary Mantel

“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

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

— Hilary Mantel

“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

When I came to write my Thomas Cromwell books, I moved onto the center ground of English history, but I was never…

— Hilary Mantel

“Evidence is always partial. Facts are not truth, though they are part of it – information is not knowledge. And history is…

— Hilary Mantel

There are plenty of books that tell you how to become a writer, but not one that suggests how, if you want…

— Hilary Mantel

Like every writer, I'm drawn by unlikely juxtapositions, precisely-dated and once-only collisions between people from different worlds.

— 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

Writing comes from that territory of being invalidated. But I had a sense of purpose, too. I wanted to stop apologising for…

— Hilary Mantel

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

When you are writing laws you are testing words to find their utmost power. Like spells, they have to make things happen…

— Hilary Mantel

“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

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

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

In my 20s I was in constant pain from undiagnosed endometriosis. With no prospect of a cure, I decided I needed a…

— Hilary Mantel

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

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

“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

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

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

Some readers read a book as if it were an instruction manual, expecting to understand everything first time, but of course when…

— Hilary Mantel