Hilary Mantel Quotes

Have you ever observed that when a man gets a son he takes all the credit, and when he gets a daughter he blames his wife? And if they do not breed at all, we say it is because her womb is barren. We do not say it is because his seed is bad.

I don’t suppose she would be a bad wife, for somebody who was prepared to keep her chained to the wall.

But I need a new husband. To stop them calling me names. Can the cardinal get husbands?"
"The cardinal can do anything. What kind of husband would you like?"
She considers. "One who will take care of my children. One who can stand up to my family. One who doesn't die.

Unreliable, is the word that comes to mind. 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…

Katherine finds him too intimate with his co-legate; anyone who has spent much time with Wolsey, she thinks, no longer knows what honesty is.

It will be the usual tense gathering, everyone cross and hungry: for even a rich Italian with an ingenious kitchen cannot find a hundred ways with smoked eel or salt cod. The merchants in Lent miss their mutton and malmsey, their nightly grunt in a featherbed with wife or mistress; from now to Good Friday their knives will be out for some cutthroat intelligence, some mean commercial advantage.

Beneath every history, another history.

More pats his arm. “Have you no plans to marry again, Thomas? No? Perhaps wise. 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?”

Henry stirs into life. “Do I retain you for what is easy? Jesus pity my simplicity, I have promoted you to a place in this kingdom that no one, no one of your breeding has ever held in the whole of the history of this realm.” He drops his voice. “Do you think it is for your personal beauty? The charm of your presence? I keep you, Master Cromwell, because you are as cunning as a bag of serpents. But do not be a viper in my bosom. You know my decision. Execute it.”

I have never understood where the line is drawn, between sacrifice and self-slaughter."
"Christ drew it."
"You don't see anything wrong with the comparison?

The all-consuming passion of Wolsey for Wolsey was hot enough to scorch all England.

There cannot be new things in England. There can be old things freshly presented or new things that pretend to be old.

News comes from France of the cardinal’s triumphs, parades, public Masses and extempore Latin orations. It seems that, once disembarked, he has stood on every high altar in Picardy and granted the worshippers remission of their sins. That’s a few thousand Frenchman free to start all over again.

It’s not easy to speak of nonexistence, even if you’ve already commissioned your tomb.

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