“ He thinks of making his fortune. We all know that money sticks to yours hands. No, It passes through them, alas. Hilary Mantel
“ Again, take someone who’s crippled or deformed; they can’t be tied to the plank without a lot of sweat and heaving, and then the crowds (who can’t see much anyway) get bored and start hissing and catc… Hilary Mantel
“ As More says, it hardly makes a man a hero, to agree to stand and burn once he is chained to a stake. I have written books and I cannot unwrite them. I cannot unbelieve what I believe. I cannot unlive… Hilary Mantel
“ Slow down,’ he said, ‘so I can see how you do it,’ but she’d laughed and said, ‘I can’t slow down, if I stopped to think how I was doing it I couldn’t do it at all. Hilary Mantel
“ You know he will take the credit for your good ideas, and you the blame for his bad ones? When fortune turns against you, you will feel her lash: you always, he never. One day, when you are still adju… Hilary Mantel
“ And I sometimes think that the fading out of the individual personality is what one should desire, not the status of a hero—a sort of effacement of oneself from history. The entire record of the human… Hilary Mantel
“ Her little hands, Crumb. Her little paws, like a child's. She has no guile in her. And she never speaks. And if she does I have to bend my head to hear what she says. And in the pause I can hear my he… Hilary Mantel
“ He is careful to deny responsibility for September, but he does not, you notice, condemn the killings. He also refrains from killing words, sparing Roland and Buzot, as if they were beneath his notice… Hilary Mantel
“ Her little hands, Crumb. Her little paws, like a child's. She has no guile in her. And she never speaks. And if she does I hate to bend my head to hear what she says. And in the pause I can hear my he… Hilary Mantel
“ A man's power is in the half-light, in the half-seen movements of his hand and the unguessed-at expression of his face. It is the absence of facts that frightens people: the gap you open, into which t… Hilary Mantel
“ One summer at the fag end of the nineties, I had to go out of London to talk to a literary society, of the sort that must have been old-fashioned when the previous century closed. When the day came, I… Hilary Mantel
“ Straight is the line of Duty, Curved is the line of Beauty, Follow the straight line, thou shall see. The curved line ever follow thee. Hilary Mantel
“ Ask Robespierre. Ask the man with the conscience which is more important, your friend or your country— ask him how he weighs an individual in the scheme of things. Ask him which comes first, his old p… Hilary Mantel
“ He has never told anyone this story. He doesn't mind talking to Richard, to Rafe about his past--within reason--but he doesn't mean to give away pieces of himself. Hilary Mantel
