571 Quotes by Hilary Mantel

If all the old stories are to be believed, and some people, let us remember, do believe them, then our king is one part bastard archer, one part hidden serpent, one part Welsh, and all of him in debt to the Italian banks.

What I always say is, wars begin in man’s time, but they end in God’s time.

Do you know you can learn from pain?’ But, he explains, the circumstances must be right. To learn, you must have a future:.

Martyr More,’ he says. ‘The word is in Rome that he and Fisher are to be made saints.

One of the French lords says, “To lose gracefully is an art that every gentleman cultivates.” “I hope to cultivate it too,” he says. “If you see an example I might follow, please point it out.

Lying gives him a deep and subtle pleasure, so deep and subtle he does not know he is lying; he thinks he is the most truthful of princes.

He would have explained, if he’d known what sort of explanation Wykys would understand. I gave up fighting because, when I lived in Florence, I looked at frescoes every day? He said, “I found an easier way to be.

I had read all the books so hard that when I gave them back the print was faint and gray with exhaustion.

If kings do not see you, they forget you. Even though nothing in the realm is done without you, kings think they do it all themselves.