“ The Robespierre women (as one tended to think of them now) were all on display. Madame looked actively, rather intimidatingly benevolent; it was her aim in life to find a Jacobin who was hungry, then… Hilary Mantel
“ Once he had watched Liz making a silk braid. One end was pinned to the wall and on each finger of her raised hands she was spinning loops of thread, her fingers flying so fast he couldn’t see how it w… Hilary Mantel
“ In this new hall the factions regroup in their old places. Legendre the butcher bawls out a Brissotin: I’ll slaughter you! First, says the deputy, have a decree passed to say that I am an ox. Hilary Mantel
“ I you ask me about the monks, I speak from experience, not prejudice, and though I have no doubt that some foundations are well governed, my experience has been of waste and corruption. May I suggest… Hilary Mantel
“ I tell you, dear Citizen Camille—it’s not the deaths I can’t stand. It’s the judgements, the judgements in the courtroom. Hilary Mantel
“ He looks down at them and arranges his face. Erasmus says that you must do this each morning before you leave your house: put on a mask, as it were. Hilary Mantel
“ He looked the Prince up and down, like a hangman taking his measurements. 'Of course there will be a revolution,' he said. 'You are making a nation of Cromwells. But we can go beyond Cromwell, I hope.… Hilary Mantel
“ Give me time, she said mockingly. That’s the anthem of the married man. Give me time while I make my excuses, give me time while I sort out my head. Just another week, just another decade, just till m… Hilary Mantel
“ Georges told me he would be back, and I have no reason to disbelieve him—but perhaps you’d like to sit down here and write him a letter? Tell him you can’t manage the thing without him, which is true.… Hilary Mantel
“ Collot is back from Lyon, did you know? He had finished his work, as he describes it. His path of righteousness is very clear and straight and broad. It’s so easy to be a good Jacobin. Collot hasn’t a… Hilary Mantel
“ As the year goes on, certain deputies—and others, high in public life—will appear unshaven, without coat or cravat; or they will jettison these marks of the polite man, when the temperature rises. The… Hilary Mantel
“ In those days his treason stood still to be proved. This is not Italy, boy. We have courts of law. Hilary Mantel
“ Hypocrisy, fraud, idleness—their worn-out relics, their threadbare worship, and their lack of invention. When did anything good last come from a monastery? They do not invent, they only repeat, and wh… Hilary Mantel
“ 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 diff… Hilary Mantel
“ Thomas More still has some credit with the king. And he has written him a letter, saying, he manages to smile, that I am Wycliffe, Luther and Zwingli rolled together and tied up in string—one reformer… Hilary Mantel
“ This revolution - will it be a living?''We must hope so. Look, I have to go, I'm visiting a client. He's going to be hanged tomorrow.''Is that usual?''Oh, they always hang my clients. Even in property… Hilary Mantel
