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Hilary Mantel

128 quotes

“A lie is no less a lie because it is a thousand years old.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) first seen 1534 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Part 6, Section 1, “Supremacy. 1534” (p. 525)
“The all-consuming passion of Wolsey for Wolsey was hot enough to scorch all England.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When you are writing laws you are testing words to find their utmost power. Like spells, they have to make things happen in the real world, and like spells, they only work if people believe in them. If your law exacts a penalty, you must be able to enforce it—on the rich as well as the poor, the people on the Scottish borders and the Welsh marches, the men of Cornwall as well as the men of Sussex and Kent.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He had said to More, prophecy didn’t make her rich. He makes a memorandum to himself: “Dame Elizabeth Barton to have money to fee the hangman.” She has five days to live. The last person she will see as she climbs the ladder is her executioner, holding out his paw. If she cannot pay her way at the last, she may suffer longer than she needs. She had imagined how long it takes to burn, but not how long it takes to choke at the end of a rope. In England there is no mercy for the poor. You pay for everything, even a broken neck.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Seven years she schemed to be queen, and God protect us from answered prayers.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) first seen 1534 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Part 6, Section 2, “The Map of Christendom. 1534-1535” (p. 554)
“I have never understood where the line is drawn, between sacrifice and self-slaughter.” “Christ drew it.” “You don’t see anything wrong with the comparison?”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 history of this realm.” He drops his voice. “Do you think it is for your personal beauty? The charm of your presence? I keep you, Master Cromwell, because you are as cunning as a bag of serpents. But do not be a viper in my bosom. You know my decision. Execute it.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is better not to try people, not to force them to desperation. Make them prosper; out of superfluity, they will be generous. Full bellies breed gentle manners. The pinch of famine makes monsters.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) first seen 1535 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Part 1, Section 2, “Crows. Autumn 1535” (p. 34)
“All the same: in the village alehouses up and down England, they are blaming the king and Anne Boleyn for the weather: the concubine, the great whore. If the king would take back his lawful wife Katherine, the rain would stop. 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 (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Once they were young men of esprit, young men of élan. A quarter of a century has passed and they are grey or balding, flabby or punchy, gone in the fetlock or missing some fingers, but still as arrogant as satraps and with the mental refinement of a gatepost.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He, Cromwell, says to his visitors, just tell them this, and tell them loud: to each monk, one bed: to each bed, one monk. Is that so hard for them? The world-weary tell him, these sins are sure to happen, if you shut up men without recourse to women they will prey on the younger and weaker novices, they are men and it is only a man’s nature. But are they supposed to rise above nature? What’s the point of all the prayer and fasting, if it leaves them insufficient when the devil comes to tempt them?”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He thinks, if I had my way I would free them all to lead a different life. They claim they’re living the vita apostolica; but you didn’t find the apostles feeling each other’s bollocks. Those who want to go, let them go. Those monks who are ordained priest can be given benefices, do useful work in the parishes. Those under twenty-four, men and women both, can be sent back into the world. They are too young to bind themselves for life with vows.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You have the right of it, Gregory. All our labours, our sophistry, all our learning both acquired or pretended; the stratagems of state, the lawyers’ decrees, the churchmen’s curses, and the grave resolutions of judges, sacred and secular: all and each can be defeated by a woman’s body, can they not? God should have made their bellies transparent, and saved us the hope and fear. But perhaps what grows in there has to grow in the dark.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It wouldn’t be St Apollonia’s teeth?” “Guess again.” “Is it teeth from the comb of Mary Magdalene?” Rice relents. “St Edmund’s nail parings.” “Ah. Tip them in with the rest. The man must have had five hundred fingers.” In the year 1257, an elephant died in the Tower menagerie and was buried in a pit near the chapel. But the following year he was dug up and his remains sent to Westminster Abbey. Now, what did they want at Westminster Abbey, with the remains of an elephant? If not to carve a ton of relics out of him, and make his animal bones into the bones of saints?”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Riding beneath dark trees at the close of that first day’s travel, they sing; it lifts the tired heart, and dispels spirits lurking in the verges; never underestimate the superstition of the average Englishman.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They have made no great speed, but it is futile to wear out horses on a task that is important, but not urgent; Katherine will live or die at her own pace. Besides, it is good for him to get out to the country. Squeezed in London’s alleys, edging horse or mule under her jetties and gables, the mean canvas of her sky pierced by broken roofs, one forgets what England is: how broad the fields, how wide the sky, how squalid and ignorant the populace.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We could have put up at a monastery, one of his guard had complained; but no girls in a monastery, I suppose. He had turned in the saddle: “You really think that?” Knowing laughter from the men.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He doesn’t believe the dead need our prayers, nor can they use them. But anyone who knows the Bible as he does, knows that our God is a capricious God, and there’s no harm in hedging your bets.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When he sleeps he dreams of the fruit of the Garden of Eden, outstretched in Eve’s plump hand. He wakes momentarily: if the fruit is ripe, when did those boughs blossom? In what possible month, in what possible spring? Schoolmen will have addressed the question. A dozen furrowed generations. Tonsured heads bent. Chilblained fingers fumbling scrolls. It’s the sort of silly question monks are made for.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You should not desire, he knows, the death of any human creature. Death is your prince, you are not his patron; when you think he is engaged elsewhere, he will batter down your door, walk in and wipe his boots on you.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) first seen 1535 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Part 1, Section 3, “Angels. Christmas 1535 – New Year 1536” (pp. 135-136)
“Thank you for your gallant reminder, Master Sadler, without your advice I might have thought myself sixteen. Ah, do you see, I am an Englishwoman now! I know how to say the opposite of what I mean.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Well,” he says, “if you’re dead, Peterborough is as good a place as any.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Jane,” he says, “if the time comes when you wish to disburden your conscience, do not go to a priest, come to me. The priest will give you a penance, but I will give you a reward.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) first seen 1536 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Part 2, Section 1, “The Black Book. January-April 1536 (p. 159)
“What is the nature of the border between truth and lies? It is permeable and blurred because it is planted thick with rumour, confabulation, misunderstandings and twisted tales. Truth can break the gates down, truth can howl in the street; unless truth is pleasing, personable and easy to like, she is condemned to stay whimpering at the back door.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A term in Parliament is an exercise in frustration, it is a lesson in patience: whichever way you like to look at it. They commune of war, peace, strife, contention, debate, murmur, grudges, riches, poverty, truth, falsehood, justice, equity, oppression, treason, murder and the edification and continuance of the commonwealth; then do as their predecessors have done – that is, as well as they might – and leave off where they began.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Of his cousin Anne he says, “You like to know where you are with a woman. Is she a harlot, or a lady? Anne wants you to treat her like the Virgin Mary, but she also wants you to put your cash on the table, do the business and get out.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sir Francis is intermittently pious, as conspicuous sinners tend to be.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He sensed in Jane’s tone the peculiar cruelty of women. They fight with the poor weapons God has bestowed – spite, guile, skill in deceit – and it is likely that in conversations between themselves they trespass in places where a man would never trust his footing.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) first seen 1536 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Part 2, Section 2, “Master of Phantoms. April-May 1536” (p. 296)
“She knows adultery is a sin and treason a crime, but to be on the losing side is a greater fault than these.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He asks Jane, “Would you do anything you can, to ruin Anne Boleyn?” His tone implies no reproach; he’s just interested. Jane considers: but only for a moment. “No one need contrive at her ruin. No one is guilty of it. She ruined herself. You cannot do what Anne Boleyn did, and live to be old.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The church does not offer much comfort to the married man, though Paul says we should love our wives. It is hard, Majesty, not to think marriage is sinful inherently, since the celibates have spent many centuries saying that they are better than we are. But they are not better. Repetition of false teachings does not make them true.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You have always regarded women as disposable, my lord, and you cannot complain if in the end they think the same of you.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Rafe asks him, could the king’s freedom be obtained, sir, with more economy of means? Less bloodshed? Look, he says: once you have exhausted the process of negotiation and compromise, once you have fixed on the destruction of an enemy, that destruction must be swift and it must be perfect. Before you even glance in his direction, you should have his name on a warrant, the ports blocked, his wife and friends bought, his heir under your protection, his money in your strong room and his dog running to your whistle. Before he wakes in the morning, you should have the axe in your hand.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When Gregory says, “Are they guilty?” he means, “Did they do it?” But when he says, “Are they guilty?” he means, “Did the court find them so?” The lawyer’s world is entire unto itself, the human pared away.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Whoever else is surprised, they are not surprised in Rome about the turn events have taken. In Rome, of course, it would be unremarkable: adultery, incest, one merely shrugs. When he was at the Vatican, in Cardinal Bainbridge’s day, he quickly saw that no one in the papal court grasped what was happening, ever; and least of all the Pope. Intrigue feeds on itself; conspiracies have neither mother nor father, and yet they thrive: the only thing to know is that no one knows anything.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In any well-ordered country, Suffolk said yesterday, the trial of a noblewoman would be conducted in seemly privacy; he had rolled his eyes and said, but my lord, this is England.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Richard hugs him; says, “If she had reigned longer she would have given us to the dogs to eat.” “If we had let her reign longer, we would have deserved it.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The word “however” is like an imp coiled beneath your chair. It induces ink to form words you have not yet seen, and lines to march across the page and overshoot the margin. There are no endings. If you think so you are deceived as to their nature. They are all beginnings. Here is one.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) first seen 1536 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Part 2, Section 3, “Spoils. Summer 1536” (p. 404; closing words)
“Usually he is the soul of courtesy. But if you cannot speak truth at a beheading, when can you speak it?”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) first seen 1536 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Part 1, Section 1, “Wreckage (I). May 1536” (p. 6)
“Gregory,” Richard says, “what we want from you is less theology and more swagger.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) first seen 1536 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Part 1, Section 2, “Salvage. Summer 1536” (p. 23)
“I don’t have a history, only a past.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Blessed are the meek,” he says. “Yes, so they claim. I notice where it gets you.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He was fretting about poison. He mentioned you.” The doctor pauses. “I do not mean to say he accused you.” “Some men always think they’re poisoned. In Italy one hears it.” “Well,” Butts says, “in Italy they are probably right.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) first seen 1536 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Part 1, Section 3, “Wreckage (II). Summer 1536” (p. 145)
“King Henry offers his services as mediator, and declares he will remain neutral. “By which he means,” Chapuys says, he will go to the side that promises him most and cost him least. That is what he means by neutrality.” He says, “What prince would do anything else? He must seize his advantage. “But then,” Chapuys says, “Henry took so much of his honour.” “Oh,” he says, “they all do.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) first seen 1536 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Part 2, Section 1, “Augmentation. Autumn 1536” (p. 235)
“You see how, my Lord, by the time my councillors proclaimed me, they had already started lying to me. As soon as you are king, nobody tells you the truth.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) first seen 1536 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Part 2, Section 3, “Vile Blood. Autumn-Winter 1536” (p. 309)
“Only a fool sees plots where there are none.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When I was first in his service he thought of our Zürich friends as no more than blasphemers who eat sausage in Lent. And Luther, he believed he was the son of a demon, who foams at the mouth when Mass is said. But what you must remember about the king—he was brought up to heed priests and to ask forgiveness for everything he does. You may kick out the confessors and tell him he is justified, but he still has a priest in the head.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Their abbots will curse you.” “Curses with me have none effect, because I give them no credit. They may curse till they combust.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Honour is a luxury, when someone is trying in earnest to kill you.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Young men claim they want change, they want freedom, but the truth is, freedom just confuses them and change makes them quake. Set them on the open road with a purse and a fair wind, and before they’ve gone a mile they are crying for a master: they must be indentured, they must be in bond, they must have someone to obey.”
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) first seen 1537 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Part 3, Section 1, “The Bleach Fields. Spring 1537 (p. 358)