Quotes from Hilary Mantel

Sólo eres joven una vez en la vida, dicen, ¿pero no se alarga mucho el tiempo? Más años de los que puedes soportar.

Henry stirs into life. 'Do I retain you for what is easy? 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.' pg. 585

The authorities in Yorkshire have rounded up their rioters, and divided them into those to be charged with affray and manslaughter, and those to be indicted for murder and rape. Rape? Since when do food riots involve rape? But I forget, this is Yorkshire."530

He admires these speculative worlds, that grow up in the crevices between truths.

He makes a gesture, designed to impersonate frankness.

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

Why did you let her take the head off London Bridge?" Cromwell:"You know me, Stephen. The fluid of benevolence flows through my veins and sometimes overspills.

He is not in the habit of explaining himself. He is not in the habit of discussing his successes. But whenever good fortune has called on him, he has been there, planted on the threshold, ready to fling open the door to her timid scratch on the wood.

I know she's rather plain, but every girl has a right to conceal that fact from people who haven't seen her.

The fate of peoples is made like this, two men in small rooms. Forget the coronations, the conclaves of cardinals, the pomp and processions. This is how the world changes: a counter pushed across a table, a pen stroke that alters the force of a phrase, a woman's sigh as she passes and leaves on the air a trail of orange flower or rose water; her hand pulling close the bed curtain, the discreet sigh of flesh against flesh.

God knows what risks we take, God knows all that Danton has done. God and Camille. God will keep his mouth shut.

there are liasons which would put yours in the shade...

Seven Wise Men, he tells Gregory: here are their sayings. Moderation in all things, nothing to excess (those two are the same, wisdom can be repetitious). Know yourself. Know your opportunity. Look ahead. Don't try for the impossible. And Bias of Priene: pleistoi anthropoi kakoi, most men are bad.

You can strike, or you can not strike, and if you choose to hold back the blow, you can still feel inside you the resonance of the omitted thing.

Just think, she said to herself. I could be living on the Right Bank. I could be married to a senior clerk at the Treasury. I could be sitting with my feet up, embroidering a linen handkerchief with a rambling-rose design. Instead I'm on the rue des Cordeliers in pursuit of a baguette, with a three-inch blade for comfort.

No son wishes to see his son less powerful than himself.

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 from, these people? They're virgins. They've never been to war. They've never been on the hunting field. They've never killed an animal, let alone a man. But they're such enthusiasts for murder.

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.

In Italy you learned cunning, but in Antwerp, flexibility. And besides, the shopping! Just step out of your door and you can get a diamond or a broom, you can get knives, candlesticks and keys, ironwork to suit the expert eye. They make soap and glass, they cure fish and they deal in alum and promissory notes. You can buy pepper and ginger, aniseed and cumin, saffron and rice, almonds and figs; you can buy vats and pots, combs and mirrors, cotton and silk, aloes and myrrh.

Sometimes it is years before we can see who are the heroes in an affair and who are the victims.

Our schools kept from us, for as long as they could, the dangerous, disruptive, upsetting knowledge of our own female nature.

I believe, but I do not believe enough.

The world beyond the glass is the world of masculine action. Everything she sees is what a man has built. But at each turn-off, each junction, women are waiting to know their fate.

Rafe shrugs. 'He is frightened of you, sir. You have outgrown him. You have gone beyond what any servant or subject should be.' It is the cardinal over again, he thinks. Wolsey was broken not for his failures, but for his successes; not for any error, but for grievances stored up, about how great he had become.