571 Quotes by Hilary Mantel

But the law is not an instrument to find out truth. It is there to create a fiction that will help us move past atrocious act and face our future. It seems there is no mercy in this world, but a kind of haphazard justice: men pay for crimes, but not necessarily their own.

Why are we so attached to the severities of the past? Why are we so proud of having endured our fathers and our mothers, the fireless days and the meatless days, the cold winters and the sharp tongues? It’s not as if we had a choice.

For many imaginative writers, working for the press is a fact of their life. But it’s best not to like it too much.

My list of sins is so extensive that the recording angel has run out of tablets, and sits in the corner with his quill blunted, wailing and ripping out his curls.

I believe, but I do not believe enough.

It is not as if it is tales out of Boccaccio.′ She laughs. ‘They could tell Boccaccio a tale, those sinners at Wolf Hall.

By the hairy balls of Jesus.

They always say, we’ll just do another year. It’s called the golden handcuffs.

These are days of brutal truth from Tyndale. Saints are not your friends and they will not protect you. They cannot help you to salvation. You cannot engage them to your service with prayers and candles, as you might hire a man for the harvest. Christ’s sacrifice was done on Calvary; it is not done in the Mass. Priests cannot help you to Heaven; you need no priest to stand between you and your God. No merits of yours can save you: only the merits of the living Christ.