Hilary Mantel Quotes

The multitude," Cavendish says, "is always desirous of a change. They never see a great man set up but they must pull him down—for the novelty of the thing.

Imagination only comes when you privilege the subconscious, when you make delay and procrastination work for you.

Seven years she schemed to be queen, and God protect us from answered prayers.

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.”

All our lives and fortunes depend now on that lady, and as well as being mutable she is mortal, and the whole history of the king’s marriage tells us a child in the womb is not an heir in the cradle.

So now, tell me how was Yorkshire.'"
"Filthy." He sits down. 'Weather. People. Manners. Morals.

The king turns, he looks at him, astonished. “You are not of Thomas More’s opinion, are you?”
He waits. He cannot imagine what the king is going to say.
“La chasse. He thinks it barbaric.”
“Oh, I see. No, Your Majesty, I favor any sport that’s cheaper than battle.”

It may be that the whole phenomenon of monarchy is irrational, but that doesn't mean that when we look at it we should behave like spectators at Bedlam. Cheerful curiosity can easily become cruelty. It can easily become fatal. We don't cut off the heads of royal ladies these days, but we do sacrifice them, and we did memorably drive one to destruction a scant generation ago. History makes fools of us, makes puppets of us, often enough. But it doesn't have to repeat itself.

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.”

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.

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

His reliquary!" George is upset, astonished. "To part with it like this! It is a piece of the true Cross!"
"We'll get him another. I know a man in Pisa makes them ten for five florins and a round dozen for cash up front. And you get a certificate with St. Peter's thumbprint, to say they're genuine.

He will remember his first sight of the open sea: a gray wrinkled vastness, like the residue of a dream.

It is a sure sign of troubled minds, the habit of quotation.

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?”