Hilary Mantel

“There are no endings. If you think so you are deceived as to their nature. They are all beginnings. Here is one.”

— Hilary Mantel

Our virtues make us; but virtues are not enough, we must deploy our vices at times

— Hilary Mantel

There's a feeling of power in reserve, a power that drives right through the bone, like the shiver you sense in the…

— Hilary Mantel

I dislike pastiche; it attracts attention to the language only.

— Hilary Mantel

History is a set of skills rather than a narrative.

— Hilary Mantel

“By the blood of creeping Christ, stand on your feet.” Creeping Christ? he thinks. What does he mean?”

— Hilary Mantel

It is better not to try people, not to force them to desperation. Make them prosper; out of superfluidity, they will be…

— Hilary Mantel

“... those sectaries in Europe who are always expecting the end of the world, but who hope that, after the earth has…

— Hilary Mantel

“The way I tell it, he says to Fitzwilliam, you would think that the blow on the head had improved him. That…

— Hilary Mantel

“Thomas More syas that the imperial troops, for their enjoyment, are roasting live babies on spits. Oh, he would! says Thomas Cromwell.…

— Hilary Mantel

“He had meant to write to Gregory and say, I have seen such a sweet girl, I will find out who she…

— Hilary Mantel

Novelists, it seems to me, are the very last people who should be asked to comment on the news of the day,…

— Hilary Mantel

“These are days of brutal truth from Tyndale. Saints are not your friends and they will not protect you. They cannot help…

— Hilary Mantel

A novel should be a book of questions, not a book of answers.

— Hilary Mantel

“So this morning--waking early, brooding on what Liz said last night--he wonders, why should my wife worry about women who have no…

— Hilary Mantel

“His sister Kat, her husband, Morgan Williams, have been plucked from this life as fast as his daughters were taken, one day…

— Hilary Mantel

It is the absence of facts that frightens people: the gap you open, into which they pour their fears, fantasies, desires.

— Hilary Mantel

One of the ideals [Margaret Thatcher] grew up with was self-denial and postponement of gratification, and yet she went about to create…

— Hilary Mantel

“Laclos thought, how about a one-way ticket to Pennsylvania? You’d enjoy life among the Quakers. Alternatively, how about a nice dip in…

— Hilary Mantel

Sometimes I fantasize that all my furniture has been destroyed in a cataclysm, and I have to start again with only the…

— Hilary Mantel

“...there are liasons which would put yours in the shade...”

— Hilary Mantel

“With France as she is, poor and unarmed, war means defeat. Defeat means either a military dictator who will salvage what he…

— Hilary Mantel

“I think, if you're going to kill a man, do it. Don't write him a letter about it. Don't bluster and threaten…

— 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

“Sometimes,’ he says, ‘I think it would save time and work if all the interested parties came to the council, including foreign…

— Hilary Mantel