“ There are some people in this world who like everything squared up and precise, and there are those who will allow some drift at the margins. Hilary Mantel
“ Our schools kept from us, for as long as they could, the dangerous, disruptive, upsetting knowledge of our own female nature. Hilary Mantel
“ Messengers wait outside the door, to carry urgent orders for release. It is difficult, when the pen skips over a name, to associate it with the corpse it might belong to, tomorrow or the day after tha… Hilary Mantel
“ I know she’s rather plain, but every girl has a right to conceal that fact from people who haven’t seen her. Hilary Mantel
“ I can remember the days,’ Mirabeau said, ‘when we didn’t have public opinion. No one had ever heard of such a thing. Hilary Mantel
“ He cannot quite accept that real property cannot be changed into money with the same speed and ease with which he changes a wafer into the body of Christ. Hilary Mantel
“ CAMILLE DESMOULINS: For the establishment of liberty and the safety of the nation, one day of anarchy will do more than ten years of National Assemblies. Hilary Mantel
“ At least, he thinks, the fellow has the wit to see what this is about: not one year's grudge or two, but a fat extract from the book of grief, kept since the cardinal came down. He says, 'Life pays yo… Hilary Mantel
“ Abroad? Oh no. I went to England in ’91, and you stood in the garden at Fontenay and berated me. He shook his head. This is my nation. Here I stay. A man can’t carry his country on the soles of his sh… Hilary Mantel
“ «Maximilien, cerca di imparare questa verità», disse padre Herivaux, «gli uomini per la maggior parte sono pigri e ti valuteranno secondo la considerazione che tu hai di te stesso. Assicurati dunque c… Hilary Mantel
“ The lawyers’ saying ‘Le mort saisit le vif’? The dead grip the living. The prince dies but his power passes at the moment of his death, there is no lapse, no interregnum Hilary Mantel
“ My great-aunts and uncles died in wards like those. Wrapping and muffling themselves, gazing at the long windows streaming rain, visitors would tell the patient: ‘You’re in the best place. Hilary Mantel
“ He takes as his text and example the unfortunate Ahab, seventh king of Israel, who lived in a palace of ivory. Under the influence of the wicked Jezebel he built a pagan temple and gave the priests of… Hilary Mantel
“ You would save them. If you could.No. There are periods in revolution when to live is a crime, and people must know how to yield their heads if they are demanded. Perhaps mine will be. If that time co… Hilary Mantel
“ You can have a silence full of words. A lute retains, in its bowl, the notes it has played. The viol, in its strings, holds a concord. A shriveled petal can hold its scent, a prayer can rattle with cu… Hilary Mantel
“ Why did you let her take the head off London Bridge?Cromwell:You know me, Stephen. The fluid of benevolence flows through my veins and sometimes overspills. Hilary Mantel
“ When he was at the Vatican, in Cardinal Bainbridge’s day, he quickly saw that no one in the papal court grasped what was happening, ever; and least of all the Pope. Intrigue feeds on itself; conspirac… Hilary Mantel
“ Truth isn’t pretty, I thought, and the pursuit of it doesn’t make pretty people. Truth isn’t elegant; that’s just mathematicians’ sentimentality. Truth is squalid and full of blots, and you can only f… Hilary Mantel
“ Thomas Cromwell is now about fifty years old. He has a labourer's body, stocky, useful, running to fat. He has black hair, greying now, and because of his impermeable skin, which seems designed to res… Hilary Mantel
