571 Quotes by Hilary Mantel

For historians, creative writers provide a kind of pornography. They break the rules and admit the thing that is imagined, but is not licensed to be imagined.

This visit has compacted the court's quarrels and intrigues, trapped them in the small space within the town's walls. The travelers have become as intimate with each other as cards in a pack: contiguous, but their paper eyes blind.

Florence and Milan had given him ideas more flexible than those of people who'd stayed at home.

When you are writing laws you are testing words to find their utmost power. Like spells, they have to make things happen in the real world, and like spells, they only work if people believe in them.

My father always says, choosing a wife is like putting your hand into a bag full of writhing creatures, with one eel to six snakes. What are the chances you will pull out the eel?

He looks around at his guests. All are prepared. A Latin grace; English would be his choice, but he will suit his company. Who cross themselves ostentatiously, in papist style. Who look at him, expectant. He shouts for the waiters. The doors burst open. Sweating men heave the platters to the table. It seems the meat is fresh, in fact not slaughtered yet. It is just a minor breach of etiquette. The company must sit and salivate. The Boleyns are laid at his hand to be carved.

Slow down,’ he said, ‘so I can see how you do it,’ but she’d laughed and said, ‘I can’t slow down, if I stopped to think how I was doing it I couldn’t do it at all.

The reader may ask how to tell fact from fiction. A rough guide: anything that seems particularly unlikely is probably true.

Di che natura è il limite fra la verità e la menzogna? È permeabile e sfocato, poiché è disseminato di voci, dicerie, malintesi e storie alterate. La verità può buttare giù i cancelli, può urlare per strada; se però non è piacevole, gradita e facile da accettare, è condannata a piagnucolare davanti alla porta di servizio.