“ This may interest you. A letter from my dear cousin Fouquier-Tinville. Camille cast an eye over his relative’s best handwriting.Squirm, flattery, abasement, squirm, dearest sweetest Camille, squirm sq… Hilary Mantel
“ They tell us that the rules of power and the rules of war are the same, the art is to deceive; and you will deceive, and be deceived in your turn, whether you are an ambassador or a suitor. Hilary Mantel
“ They claim they're living the vita apostolica; but you didn't find the apostles feeling each other's bollocks. Hilary Mantel
“ There was a man called Chaumette, scruffy and sharp-featured. He hated the aristocrats and he also hated prostitutes, and the two things used to get quite confused in his mind. Hilary Mantel
“ There is only one penalty for high treason: for a man, to be hanged, cut down alive and eviscerated, or for a woman, to be burned. The king may vary the sentence to decapitation; only poisoners are bo… Hilary Mantel
“ There cannot be new things in England. There can be old things freshly presented or new things that pretend to be old. Hilary Mantel
“ The reader may ask how to tell fact from fiction. A rough guide: anything that seems particularly unlikely is probably true. Hilary Mantel
“ The living result of the queen’s labors is the diminutive Mary—not really a whole princess, perhaps two-thirds of one. Hilary Mantel
“ Statements, indictments, bills are circulated, shuffled between judges, prosecutors, the Attorney General, the Lord Chancellor’s office; each step in the process clear, logical, and designed to create… Hilary Mantel
“ If you knew at twenty what you know at thirty-five, what a marvellous life you could have; on the other hand, you might find that you couldn't be bothered to have any life at all. Hilary Mantel
“ If a king cannot have a son, if he cannot do that, it matters not what else he can do. The victories, the spoils of victory, the just laws he makes, the famous courts he holds, these are as nothing.’… Hilary Mantel
“ He wonders again if the dead need translators; perhaps in a moment, in a simple twist of unbecoming, they know everything they need to know. Hilary Mantel
“ Gradually, you see, our people are coming into the power they have always thought is their due. Hilary Mantel
“ England has enjoyed fifty years of peace. This is the Tudors’ covenant; peace is what they offer. Hilary Mantel
“ Concentrate on sharpening your memory and peeling your sensibility. Cut every page you write by at least one third. Stop constructing those piffling little similes of yours. Work out what it is you wa… Hilary Mantel
“ Christ died to free us from the burden of our sin, but he never, so far as [Sister Philomena] could see, lifted a finger to free us from our stupidity. Hilary Mantel
“ Brother Luca Pacioli. It took him thirty years to write. The book is bound in deepest green with a tooled border of gold, and its pages are edged in gilt, so that it blazes in the light. Its clasps ar… Hilary Mantel
