“ Were you ever at the cathedral in Chartres? You walk the labyrinth, he says, set into the pavement, and it seems there is no sense in it. But if you follow it faithfully it leads you straight to the c… Hilary Mantel
“ We passed the Irish club, and the florist’s with its small stiff pink-and-white carnations in a bucket, and the drapers called ‘Elvina’s’, which displayed in its window Bear Brand stockings and knife-… Hilary Mantel
“ There is no need for unanimity, Saint- Just said. It would have been desirable, but let’s get on. There are only two signatures wanting, I think, besides those who have refused. Citizen Lacoste, you n… Hilary Mantel
“ The prose, Robespierre said. It’s so clean, no conceits, no show, no wit. He means every word. Formerly, you see, he meant every other word. That was his style. Hilary Mantel
“ The main thing is, the constraints have come off style. What we are saying now is that the Revolution does not proceed in a pitiless, forward direction, its politics and its language becoming ever mor… Hilary Mantel
“ People said— though this felt like a heresy— that they had seen Camille make Robespierre laugh. Hilary Mantel
“ Marlinspike goes down to the kitchen, to grow stout and live out his beastly nature. There is a summer ahead, though he cannot imagine its pleasures; sometimes when he’s walking in the garden he sees… Hilary Mantel
“ Leases, writs, statutes, all are written to be read, and each person reads them by the light of self-interest. Hilary Mantel
“ It is all very well planning what you will do in six months, what you will do in a year, but it’s no good at all if you don’t have a plan for tomorrow. Hilary Mantel
“ In the year 1257, an elephant died in the Tower menagerie and was buried in a pit near the chapel. But the following year he was dug up and his remains sent to Westminster Abbey. Now, what did they wa… Hilary Mantel
“ I was just going over London Bridge and I saw someone had attacked the Madonna's statue. Knocked off the baby's head.’‘That was done a while back. It would be that devil Cranmer. You know what he is w… Hilary Mantel
“ I think now that this is the great division between people. There are people who find life hard and those who find it easy. There are those who have a natural, in-built, expectation of happiness, and… Hilary Mantel
“ I look like a watermelon with a great slice hacked out. I say to myself, it's just another border post on the frontier between medicine and greengrocery; growths and tumour seem always to be described… Hilary Mantel
“ I have written books and I cannot unwrite them. I cannot unbelieve what i believe. I cannot unlive my life Hilary Mantel
“ Hérault, Fabre thinks: and his mind drifts back—as it tends to, these days— to the Café du Foy. He’d been giving readings from his latest—Augusta was dying the death at the Italiens—and in came this h… Hilary Mantel
