Hilary Mantel Quotes

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

I used to think that the interesting issue was whether we should have a monarchy or not. But now I think that question is rather like, should we have pandas or not? Our current royal family doesn't have the difficulties in breeding that pandas do, but pandas and royal persons alike are expensive to conserve and ill-adapted to any modern environment. But aren't they interesting? Aren't they nice to look at? Some people find them endearing; some pity them for their precarious situation; everybody stares at them, and however airy the enclosure they inhabit, it's still a cage.

The trouble with England, he thinks, is that it’s so poor in gesture. We shall have to develop a hand signal for “Back off, our prince is fucking this man’s daughter.” He is surprised that the Italians have not done it. Though perhaps they have, and he just never caught on.

Norfolk approaches him. He stands far too close. His eyes are bloodshot. Every sinew is jumping. He says, “Substitute nothing, you misbegotten—” The duke stabs a forefinger into his shoulder. “You…person,” he says; and again, “you nobody from Hell, you whore-spawn, you cluster of evil, you lawyer.”

We don’t have to invite pain in, he thinks. It’s waiting for us: sooner rather than later.

Oh, you are not disappointing," Henry says. "But the moment you are, I will let you know.

When have I, when have I ever forced anyone to do anything, he starts to say: but Richard cuts in, “No, you don’t, I agree, it’s just that you are practiced at persuading, and sometimes it’s quite difficult, sir to distinguish being persuaded by you from being knocked down in street and stamped on.”

He had said to More, prophecy didn’t make her rich. He makes a memorandum to himself: “Dame Elizabeth Barton to have money to fee the hangman.” She has five days to live. The last person she will see as she climbs the ladder is her executioner, holding out his paw. If she cannot pay her way at the last, she may suffer longer than she needs. She had imagined how long it takes to burn, but not how long it takes to choke at the end of a rope. In England there is no mercy for the poor. You pay for everything, even a broken neck.

He says, “No ruler in the history of the world has ever been able to afford a war. They’re not affordable things. No prince ever says, ‘This is my budget, so this is the kind of war I can have.’ You enter into one and it uses up all the money you’ve got, and then it breaks you and bankrupts you.”

Wherever he goes he is cheered by the people.
“The people?” Norfolk says. They’d cheer a Barbary ape. Who cares what they cheer? Hang ’em all.”
“But then who will you tax?” he says, and Norfolk looks at him fearfully, unsure if he’s made a joke.

She is selling herself by the inch. The gentlemen all say you are advising her. She wants a present in cash for every advance above her knee."
"Not like you, Mary. One push backward and, good girl, here's your fourpence."
"Well. You know. If kings are doing the pushing." She laughs. "Anne has very long legs. By the time he comes to her secret part he will be bankrupt. The French wars will be cheap, in comparison.

A part of the art of ruling, I suppose, is to know when to shut your ears.

A lie is no less a lie because it is a thousand years old.

The ladies of Italy, seemingly carefree, wore constructions of iron beneath their silks. It took infinite patience, not just in negotiation, to get them out of their clothes.

For what’s the point of breeding children, if each generation does not improve on what went before?