“ The spectacles of pain and disgrace I see around me, the ignorance, the unthinking vice, the poverty and the lack of hope, and oh, the rain—the rain that falls on England and rots the grain, puts out… Hilary Mantel
“ The old marchioness had him tracing down bed hangings and carpets for her. Send that. Be here. To her, all the world was a menial. If she wanted a lobster or a sturgeon, she ordered it up, and if she… Hilary Mantel
“ Sometimes,’ he says, ‘I think it would save time and work if all the interested parties came to the council, including foreign ambassadors. The proceedings leak out anyway, and to save them mishearing… Hilary Mantel
“ So this morning--waking early, brooding on what Liz said last night--he wonders, why should my wife worry about women who have no sons? Possibly it's something women do: spend time imagining what it's… Hilary Mantel
“ She held out her hands in a curve around herself, to show how emotion distends you. It makes you feel full up, a big weight in your chest, and then you don't want your dinner. Hilary Mantel
“ One never anticipated the scale of it, Brissot whispered. It was planned, yes, and people were paid—but not ten thousand people. Not even the Duke could pay ten thousand people. They acted for themsel… Hilary Mantel
“ Now here is Gardiner, patting a manuscript as if it were the cheek of a plump baby: ‘The king will be pleased to read this. I have called it, Of True Obedience.’ ‘You had better let me see it before i… Hilary Mantel
“ Jesus Maria,’ the boy says. ‘The star that guides us to Bethlehem. I thought it was an engine for torture. Hilary Mantel
“ It is not the stars that make us, Dr. Butts, it is circumstance and , the choices we make under pressure; our virtues make us, but virtues are not enough, we must deploy our vices at times. Or don't y… Hilary Mantel
“ It is not so important, what happens to the body. I have led in some ways a blessed life. God has been good and not tested me. Now he does I cannot fail him. I have been vigilant over my heart, and I… Hilary Mantel
“ It is magnificent. At the moment of impact, the king's eyes are open, his body braced for the ; he takes the blow perfectly, its force absorbed by a body securely armoured, moving in the right directi… Hilary Mantel
“ If he's not watering his ale, he's running illegal beasts on the common, if he's not despoiling the common he's assaulting an officer of the peace, if he's not drunk he's dead drunk, and if he's not d… Hilary Mantel
“ If a man spoke to you in that tone, you'd invite him to step outside and ask someone to hold your coat.378 Hilary Mantel
“ I wonder what I’ve married into, Morgan Williams says. But really, this is just something Morgan says; some men have a habitual sniffle, some women have a headache, and Morgan has this wonder. Hilary Mantel
“ I see that both the living and the dead commute, riding their familiar trains. I am not, as you will have gathered, a person who needs false excitement, or simulated innovation. I am willing, though,… Hilary Mantel
“ I felt, he said, irritated. It seemed a waste, I suppose. To come so far. To cross the sea. To die for . . . He shrugs. God knows why. Hilary Mantel
“ I don’t grudge them some bodily comforts. It cannot always be Lent. What I cannot stomach is hypocrisy, fraud, idleness—their worn-out relics, their threadbare worship, and their lack of invention. Wh… Hilary Mantel
“ Henry stirs into life. Do I retain you for what is easy? Jesus pity my simplicity, I have promoted you to a place in this kingdom that no one, no one of your breeding has ever held in the whole of the… Hilary Mantel
“ He thinks, strive as I might, one day I will be gone and as this world goes it may not be long: what though I am a man of firmness and vigour, fortune is mutable and either my enemies will do for me o… Hilary Mantel
“ He never sees More – a star in another firmament, who acknowledges him with a grim nod – without wanting to ask him, what's wrong with you? Or what's wrong with me? Why does everything you know, and e… Hilary Mantel
