“ I was (an am) unsure about how I am related to my old self, or to myself from year to year. The hormonal profile of an individual determines much of the manifest personality. If you skew the endocrine… Hilary Mantel
“ I think the wolves all died when the great forests were cut down. That howling you hear is only the Londoners. Hilary Mantel
“ Henry had sat up: ‘I can do as it pleases me,’ his monarch said. ‘God would not allow my pleasure to be contrary to his design, nor my designs to be impeded by his will.’ A shadow of cunning had cross… Hilary Mantel
“ He was, in all, so clean, so sweet, so golden, that I backed off, afraid he must be American and about to convert me to some cult. Hilary Mantel
“ He told me that you had a loathing of those in the religious life. That was why he found you diligent in his work. That was not the reason. He looks up. May I speak? Oh, for God’s sake, Henry cries. I… Hilary Mantel
“ Georges was in a rage. It is a spectacle to comtemplate, his rage. He tore off his cravat, strode about the room, his throat and chest glistening with sweat, his voice shaking the windows. This bloody… Hilary Mantel
“ Edward Seymour says, ‘You should have been a bishop, Cromwell.’‘Edward,’ he says, ‘I should have been Pope. Hilary Mantel
“ Do you know Camille Desmoulins? he asked. Have you seen him? He’s one of these law-school boys. Never used anything more dangerous than a paper knife. He shook his head wonderingly.Where do they come… Hilary Mantel
“ A lie is no less a lie because it is a thousand years old. Your undivided church has liked nothing better than persecuting its own members, burning them and hacking them apart when they stood by their… Hilary Mantel
“ …they were intent on framing a 'Declaration of the Rights of Man'. Some were heard to mutter that the Assembly should write the constitution first, since rights exist in virtue of laws, but jurisprude… Hilary Mantel
“ What’s wrong with you? Or what’s wrong with me? Why does everything you know, and everything you’ve learned, confirm you in what you believed before? Whereas in my case, what I grew up with, and what… Hilary Mantel
“ He’s not real I can take his space. As I get into bed beside him, the strongman vanishes. I pick up my diary and record him: was there, isn’t any more. This happened in early July, 2010. I had surgery… Hilary Mantel
“ You . . . person, he says; and again, you nobody from Hell, you whore-spawn, you cluster of evil, you lawyer. Hilary Mantel
“ There is a world beyond this black world. There is a world of the possible. A world where Anne can be queen is a world where Cromwell can be Cromwell. He sees it; then he doesn’t. The moment is fleeti… Hilary Mantel
“ The trouble with England, he thinks, is that it's so poor in gesture. We shall have to develop a hand signal for ‘Back off, our prince is fucking this man's daughter.’ He is surprised that the Italian… Hilary Mantel
“ The first years were spent in cleaning Muriel, in reconciling herself to her existence. Evelyn wanted to be alone in the house; the house filled up, more than she had dreaded. After some time, Muriel… Hilary Mantel
