Hilary Mantel Quotes - Page 6

He thinks, I remembered you, Thomas More, but you didn't remember me. You never even saw me coming.

So many years of preparation, for what was called adult life: was it for this?

Imagination only comes when you privilege the subconscious, when you make delay and procrastination work for you.

At New Year's he had given Anne a present of silver forks with handles of rock crystal. He hopes she will use them to eat with, not to stick in people.

I am usually protective of my work, not showing it to anyone until it has been redrafted and polished.

As a writer, you owe it to yourself not to get stuck in a rut of looking at the world in a certain way.

For historians, creative writers provide a kind of pornography.

In order to successfully impersonate men, the woman [Margaret Thatcher] launched a war.

Fear of commitment lies behind the fear of writing.

For many imaginative writers, working for the press is a fact of their life. But it's best not to like it too much.

I only became a novelist because I thought I had missed my chance to become a historian.

[Margaret Thatcher] scorned and despised other women, and predicated her values entirely on the values of her father, a small town shopkeeper.

It follows that if you are not a mother you are not a grandmother. Your life has become unpunctuated, whereas the lives of other women around you have these distinct phases.

And if a diversion is needed, why not arrest a general? Arthur Dillon is a friend of eminent deputies, a contender for the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Northern Front; he has proved himself at Valmy and in a halfdozen actions since. In the National Assembly he was a liberal; now he is a republican. Isn't it then logical that he should be thrown into gaol, July 1, on suspicion of passing military secrets to the enemy?

You think you're writing one historical novel and it turns into three, and I'm quite used to a short story turning into a novel - that's happened through my whole career.

[Margaret Thatcher] was always talking about what the prudent housewife should do and what the prudent housewife knew.

When I began to read as an adult, I read almost exclusively novelists of a generation back. I did the Russians, then I started getting more up to date. When you become published and become a reviewer, piles of books come along and you are pushed by fashion and what you are commissioned to do.

If the monarchy were removed tomorrow, it wouldn't have a huge effect on the national mind-set. The monarchy is mildly interesting and largely harmless. I can't find I can get very heated about it. In the next couple of generations, it is bound to go. There is so much else in the world that is more interesting.

I am sure that all politicians seek the home connection with the voter. But [Margaret Thatcher] carried it to extremes.

[Margaret Thatcher] assumed somehow that this would get the woman voter and all those juvenile male voters who wanted a well-regulated household with a woman who knew what she should be doing.

One of the ideals [Margaret Thatcher] grew up with was self-denial and postponement of gratification, and yet she went about to create a greedy, short-term society. It is a paradox.

It was a very funny conference. I knew [Christopher Hitchens] before that. He had always been a good angel to me. He once stole a phrase from me that came out of his mouth on television. I saw his eyes move sideways. I thought, It's alright, you can have it! The conference was light on women. Salman Rushdie showed up, they were doing their own thing. I didn't feel neglected!

In terms of essays, I would say Oliver Sacks. His breadth of hard knowledge and imagination and empathy seems to constitute the perfect mind to me.

[Margaret Thatcher] aroused such strong loathing in so many people. That's the fact that interests me.

What is it we are hating? It goes beyond politics. I suppose that my fascination with [Margaret Thatcher] is not just with her political record but with her as a phenomenon.