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Hilary Mantel

128 quotes

“I used to think that the interesting issue was whether we should have a monarchy or not. But now I think that question is rather like, should we have pandas or not? Our current royal family doesn't have the difficulties in breeding that pandas do, but pandas and royal persons alike are expensive to conserve and ill-adapted to any modern environment. But aren't they interesting? Aren't they nice to look at? Some people find them endearing; some pity them for their precarious situation; everybody stares at them, and however airy the enclosure they inhabit, it's still a cage.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It may be that the whole phenomenon of monarchy is irrational, but that doesn't mean that when we look at it we should behave like spectators at Bedlam. Cheerful curiosity can easily become cruelty. It can easily become fatal. We don't cut off the heads of royal ladies these days, but we do sacrifice them, and we did memorably drive one to destruction a scant generation ago. History makes fools of us, makes puppets of us, often enough. But it doesn't have to repeat itself.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Royal Bodies", London Review of Books, 35:4 (21 February 2013).
“Imagination only comes when you privilege the subconscious, when you make delay and procrastination work for you.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As cited in Linda Newbery, Yvonne Coppard Writing Children's Fiction: A Writers' and Artists' Companion, A&C Black (22 August 2013), p. 55
“He will remember his first sight of the open sea: a gray wrinkled vastness, like the residue of a dream.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) first seen 1500 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Part 1, Section 1, “Across the Narrow Sea. 1500” (p. 15)
“So now, tell me how was Yorkshire.’” “Filthy.” He sits down. ‘Weather. People. Manners. Morals.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) first seen 1527 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Part 1, Section 2, “Paternity. 1527” (p. 18)
“For what’s the point of breeding children, if each generation does not improve on what went before?”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The multitude,” Cavendish says, “is always desirous of a change. They never see a great man set up but they must pull him down—for the novelty of the thing.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) first seen 1529 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Part 2, Section 1, “Visitation. 1529” (p. 49)
“His reliquary!” George is upset, astonished. “To part with it like this! It is a piece of the true Cross!” “We’ll get him another. I know a man in Pisa makes them ten for five florins and a round dozen for cash up front. And you get a certificate with St. Peter’s thumbprint, to say they’re genuine.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Beneath every history, another history.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) first seen 1521 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Part 2, Section 2, “An Occult History of Britain. 1521-1529” (p. 61)
“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 Italians have not done it. Though perhaps they have, and he just never caught on.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It’s not easy to speak of nonexistence, even if you’ve already commissioned your tomb.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Thomas More says that the imperial troops, for their enjoyment, are roasting live babies on spits. Oh, he would! says Thomas Cromwell. Listen, soldiers don’t do that. They’re too busy carrying away everything they can turn into ready money.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We don’t have to invite pain in, he thinks. It’s waiting for us: sooner rather than later.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Unreliable, is the word that comes to mind. If all the old stories are to be believed, and some people, let us remember, do believe them, then our king is one part bastard archer, one part hidden serpent, one part Welsh, and all of him in debt to the Italian banks…”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“News comes from France of the cardinal’s triumphs, parades, public Masses and extempore Latin orations. It seems that, once disembarked, he has stood on every high altar in Picardy and granted the worshippers remission of their sins. That’s a few thousand Frenchman free to start all over again.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is a sure sign of troubled minds, the habit of quotation.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There cannot be new things in England. There can be old things freshly presented or new things that pretend to be old.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“More pats his arm. “Have you no plans to marry again, Thomas? No? Perhaps wise. My father always says, choosing a wife is like putting your hand into a bag full of writhing creatures, with one eel to six snakes. What are the chances you will pull out the eel?”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But I need a new husband. To stop them calling me names. Can the cardinal get husbands?” “The cardinal can do anything. What kind of husband would you like?” She considers. “One who will take care of my children. One who can stand up to my family. One who doesn’t die.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Katherine finds him too intimate with his co-legate; anyone who has spent much time with Wolsey, she thinks, no longer knows what honesty is.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The king turns, he looks at him, astonished. “You are not of Thomas More’s opinion, are you?” He waits. He cannot imagine what the king is going to say. “La chasse. He thinks it barbaric.” “Oh, I see. No, Your Majesty, I favor any sport that’s cheaper than battle.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) first seen 1529 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Part 3, Section 1, “Three-Card Trick. Winter 1529-Spring 1530” (p. 167)
“He says, “No ruler in the history of the world has ever been able to afford a war. They’re not affordable things. No prince ever says, ‘This is my budget, so this is the kind of war I can have.’ You enter into one and it uses up all the money you’ve got, and then it breaks you and bankrupts you.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Norfolk approaches him. He stands far too close. His eyes are bloodshot. Every sinew is jumping. He says, “Substitute nothing, you misbegotten—” The duke stabs a forefinger into his shoulder. “You…person,” he says; and again, “you nobody from Hell, you whore-spawn, you cluster of evil, you lawyer.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It will be the usual tense gathering, everyone cross and hungry: for even a rich Italian with an ingenious kitchen cannot find a hundred ways with smoked eel or salt cod. The merchants in Lent miss their mutton and malmsey, their nightly grunt in a featherbed with wife or mistress; from now to Good Friday their knives will be out for some cutthroat intelligence, some mean commercial advantage.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A part of the art of ruling, I suppose, is to know when to shut your ears.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Leases, writs, statutes, all are written to be read and each person reads them by the light of self-interest.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Wherever he goes he is cheered by the people. “The people?” Norfolk says. They’d cheer a Barbary ape. Who cares what they cheer? Hang ’em all.” “But then who will you tax?” he says, and Norfolk looks at him fearfully, unsure if he’s made a joke.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Rumors of the cardinal’s popularity don’t make him glad, they make him afraid. The king has given Wolsey a pardon. But if he was offended once, he can be offended again. If they could think up forty-four charges, then—if fantasy is unconstrained by truth—they can think up forty-four more.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And I suppose the cardinal might send him a present for his trouble. Some money, I mean. Our aunt Mercy says that the pope does nothing except on cash terms.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What was England, before Wolsey? A little offshore island, poor and cold.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The ladies of Italy, seemingly carefree, wore constructions of iron beneath their silks. It took infinite patience, not just in negotiation, to get them out of their clothes.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) first seen 1531 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Part 4, Section 1, “Arrange Your Face. 1531” (p. 265)
“Lent saps the spirits, as of course it is designed to do.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“She is selling herself by the inch. The gentlemen all say you are advising her. She wants a present in cash for every advance above her knee.” “Not like you, Mary. One push backward and, good girl, here’s your fourpence.” “Well. You know. If kings are doing the pushing.” She laughs. “Anne has very long legs. By the time he comes to her secret part he will be bankrupt. The French wars will be cheap, in comparison.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One tradesman the same as the next? Not in the real world. Any man with a steady hand and a cleaver can call himself a butcher: but without the smith, where does he get that cleaver? Without the man who works in metal, where are your hammers, your scythes, your sickles, scissors and planes? Your arms and armor, your arrowheads, your pikes and your guns? Where are your ships at sea and their anchors? Where are your grappling hooks, your nails, latches, hinges, pokers and tongs? Where are your spits, kettles, trivets, your harness rings, buckles and bits? Where are your knives?”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But it is no use to justify yourself. It is no good to explain. It is weak to be anecdotal. It is wise to conceal the past even if there is nothing to conceal. 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 they pour their fears, fantasies, desires.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) first seen 1532 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Part 4, Section 2, “Alas, What Shall I Do for Love? Spring 1532” (p. 331)
“The cardinal used to say, the English will forgive a king anything, until he tries to tax them.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Anne says, “I am Jezebel. You, Thomas Cromwell, are the priests of Baal.” Her eyes are alight. “As I am a woman, I am the means by which sin enters this world. I am the devil’s gateway, the cursed ingress. I am the means by which Satan attacks the man, whom he was not bold enough to attack, except through me. Well, that is their view of the situation. My view is that there are too many priests with scant learning and smaller occupation. And I wish the Pope and the Emperor and all Spaniards were in the sea and drowned.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Why do I feel I have heard this story before? She has a flock of monks and priests about her, who directed the people’s eyes heavenward while picking their pockets.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Wolsey always said that the making of a treaty is the treaty. It doesn’t matter what the terms are, just that there are terms. It’s the goodwill that matters. When that runs out, the treaty is broken, whatever the terms say.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Gambling is not a vice, if you can afford to do it.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The king laughs. “Why would I trust a man with my business, if he could not manage his own?”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Oh, you are not disappointing,” Henry says. “But the moment you are, I will let you know.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I don’t suppose she would be a bad wife, for somebody who was prepared to keep her chained to the wall.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) first seen 1533 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Part 5, Section 1, “Anna Regina. 1533” (p. 400)
“You see,” she says slowly, “I was always desired. But now I am valued. And that is a different thing, I find.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He is a good boy, Gregory. Not the most forward, but I can understand that. We’ll make him useful yet.” “You don’t intend him for the church?” Cranmer asks. “I said,” growls Rowland, “we’ll make him useful.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When have I, when have I ever forced anyone to do anything, he starts to say: but Richard cuts in, “No, you don’t, I agree, it’s just that you are practiced at persuading, and sometimes it’s quite difficult, sir to distinguish being persuaded by you from being knocked down in street and stamped on.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All our lives and fortunes depend now on that lady, and as well as being mutable she is mortal, and the whole history of the king’s marriage tells us a child in the womb is not an heir in the cradle.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Tell me, why do you think I do this?” The king sounds curious. “Out of lust? Is that what you think?” Kill a cardinal? Divide your country? Split the church? “It seems extravagant,” Chapuys murmurs.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In his student days he was known for a sharp slanderous tongue, for irreverence to his seniors, for drinking and gaming for high stakes. But who would hold up his head, if people judged us by what we were like at twenty?”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) first seen 1533 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Part 5, Section 2, “Devil’s Spit. Autumn and Winter 1533” (p. 451)
“Have you ever observed that when a man gets a son he takes all the credit, and when he gets a daughter he blames his wife? And if they do not breed at all, we say it is because her womb is barren. We do not say it is because his seed is bad.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source