“ And indeed, who can doubt that everything would be different and better, if only England were ruled by village idiots and their drunken friends? Hilary Mantel
“ A printing press that can write its own books? A mind that thinks about itself? If I don’t have it, at least the King of France doesn’t either. Hilary Mantel
“ A phrase runs through his head – was it Thomas More’s? – ‘the peace of the hen coop when the fox has run home’. He sees the scattered carcasses, Hilary Mantel
“ A decade of self-aggrandisement, since his daughter flashed her cunny at the king, has made Boleyn rich and settled and confident. Hilary Mantel
“ He holds the boy, feeling the jump of his pulses, his stiff sinews, the ropes of his muscles, and makes sounds of comfort, as he did to his children when they were small, or as he does to a spaniel wh… Hilary Mantel
“ . .She turns her head away, but through the thin film of her veil he can see her skin glow. Because women will coax: tell me, just tell me something, tell me your thoughts; and this he has done. Hilary Mantel
“ Some readers read a book as if it were an instruction manual, expecting to understand everything first time, but of course when you write, you put into every sentence an overflow of meaning, and you c… Hilary Mantel
“ Жил некогда в Фессалии поэт по имени Симонид. Богач Скопа пригласил его на пир прочитать хвалебную оду в свою честь. У поэтов бывают странные причуды, и Симонид включил в оду хвалы небесным близнецам… Hilary Mantel
“ We are not priests. We don’t want their sort of confession. We are lawyers. We want the truth little by little and only those parts of it we can use. Hilary Mantel
“ As is usual in treason trials, they will have no legal representation. But they will have a chance to speak, and represent themselves, and they can call witnesses: if anybody will stand up for them. M… Hilary Mantel
“ Why are we so attached to the severities of the past? Why are we so proud of having endured our fathers and our mothers, the fireless days and the meatless days, the cold winters and the sharp tongues… Hilary Mantel
“ When Wyatt writes, his lines fledge feathers, and unfolding this plumage they dive below their meaning and skim above it. They tell us that the rules of power and the rules of war are the same, the ar… Hilary Mantel
“ The year now is 1774. Poseurs or not, it is time to grow up. It is time to enter the public realm, the world of public acts and public attitudes. Everything that happens now will happen in the light o… Hilary Mantel
“ The visitor sees the hospital as needles and knives, metal teeth, metal bars; sees the foggy meeting between the damp summer air outside and the overheated exhalations of the sick room. But the patien… Hilary Mantel
“ The order goes to the Tower, ‘Bring up the bodies.’ Deliver, that is, the accused men, by name Weston, Brereton, Smeaton and Norris, to Westminster Hall for trial. Kingston fetches them by barge; it i… Hilary Mantel
“ The hunter is among the most innocent of men; living in the moment makes him feel pure. When he returns in the evening, his body aches, his mind is full of pictures of leaves and sky; he does not want… Hilary Mantel
“ The fate of peoples is made like this, two men in small rooms. Forget the coronations, the conclaves of cardinals, the pomp and processions. This is how the world changes: a counter pushed across a ta… Hilary Mantel
“ The English will never be forgiven for the talent for destruction they have always displayed when they get off their own island. Hilary Mantel
“ Suppose she denied him then but favored him some other time? Women are weak and easily conquered by flattery. Especially when men write verses to them, and there are some who sat that Wyatt writes bet… Hilary Mantel
