Quotes by 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 create in every sentence as many resonances and double meanings and ambiguities as you can possibly pack in there, so that people can read it again and get something new each time.

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 mans 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.

If you help load a cart you get a ride in it, as often as not. It gives him to think, how bad people are at loading carts. Men trying to walk straight ahead through a narrow gateway with a wide wooden chest. A simple rotation of the object solves a great many problems.

History is not the past – it is the method we have evolved of organising our ignorance of the past

England is always remaking herself, her cliffs eroding, her sandbanks drifting, springs bubbling up in dead ground. They regroup themselves while we sleep, the landscapes through which we move, and even the histories that trail us; the faces of the dead fade into other faces, as a spine of hills into the mist.

Fantasy is unconstrained by truth.

A mans 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.

In order not to make a liar out of Henry or Katherine, one or the other, the committee men think up circumstances in which the match may have been partly consummated, or somewhat consummated, and to do this they have to imagine every disaster and shame that can occur between a man and a woman alone in a room in the dark.

She lives on the fumes of whiskey and the iron in the blood of her prey.

In the forest you may find yourself lost, without companions. You may come to a river which is not on a map. You may lose sight of your quarry, and forget why you are there. You may meet a dwarf, or the living Christ, or an old enemy of yours; or a new enemy, one you do not know until you see his face appear between the rustling leaves, and see the glint of his dagger. You may find a woman asleep in a bower of leaves. For a moment, before you don’t recognise her, you will think she is someone you know.

Feminism hasnt failed, its just never been tried.

The world moves on so fast, and we lose all chance of being the women our mothers were; we lose all understanding of what shaped them.

Its not easy to diagnose because depending where the endometrial deposits are, the symptoms can be quite different. Its an unrecognized problem among teenage girls, and its something that every young woman who has painful menstruation should be aware of ... its a condition that is curable if its caught early. If not, if its allowed to run on, it can cause infertility, and it can really mess up your life.[Author Hilary Mantel on being asked about being a writer with endometriosis, Nov 2012 NPR interview]

But I had to think to myself that this was normal, because that was the attitude. I was 19 when I went to see my doctor and I was told it was all in the mind.[Author Hilary Mantel on being told her endometriosis was imagined pain, From Oct 2009 Daily Mail interview]

If you get stuck, get away from your desk. Take a walk, take a bath, go to sleep, make a pie, draw, listen to ­music, meditate, exercise; whatever you do, dont just stick there scowling at the problem. But dont make telephone calls or go to a party; if you do, other peoples words will pour in where your lost words should be. Open a gap for them, create a space. Be pat

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.

...this is what death does to you, it takes and takes, so that all that is left of your memories is a faint tracing of spilled ash.

The maid found a handkerchief of hers, under the bed in which she had died. A ring that had been missing turned up in his own writing desk. A tradesman arrived with fabric she had ordered three weeks ago. Each day, some further evidence of a task half finished, a scheme incomplete. He found a novel, with her place marked.And this is it.

His suppressed grief becomes anger. But what can he do with anger? It must also be suppressed.

Last night he kept the vigil alone. He lay awake, wishing Liz back; waiting for her to come and lie beside him. Its true he is at Esher with the cardinal, not at home at the Austin Friars. But, he thought, shell know how to find me. Shell look for the cardinal, drawn through the space between worlds by incense and candlelight. Whereever the cardinal is, I will be.