Quotes from Hilary Mantel

peroration. He had left his opponents with nothing to say and nowhere to

And yet … he feels something, in his heart, and then he sits down and works out the logic of it, in his head. Then he says that the head part came first; and we believe him.

The moon, as if disgraced, trails rags of black cloud.

In the night I was asleep,' Christophe says. 'It was some old ghost, I suppose.' 'Surely not,' Riche says. 'I never heard of ghosts that walk in June.' There's something in that. It was the veiled ladies—living women, as far as one knows—who attended him, till dawn came and they faded into the wall. He remembers the dappling of their garments, the streaks of darkness where they had wiped the queen's blood on their robes.

Henry says, 'Her Grace will withdraw.' Jane is shaking. 'They are too much burdened with taxes.' The king leans forward. 'The burdens of tax do not rest on the shoulders of labourers, or small husbandmen. Dives, the rich man, knows and has always known how to pass off his interests as the interests of Lazarus, the beggar.

The monuments of dead monarchs draw together, as if their bones were counselling each other; and the prophetic pavements beneath them, those stones of onyx, porphyry, green serpentine and glass, advise us through their inscriptions how many years the world will last.

It is not the stars that make us, Dr. Butts, it is circumstance and necessità, the choices we make under pressure; our virtues make us, but virtues are not enough, we must deploy our vices at times.

Christophe says, 'You are not sad, sir?' 'No. I am not sad. I am not allowed to be. I am too useful to be sad.

He, Cromwell, touches a finger to the metal. You would not guess it to look at him now, but his father was a blacksmith; he has affinity with iron, steel, with everything that is mined from the earth or forged, everything that is made molten, or wrought, or given a cutting edge. The executioner's blade is incised with Christ's crown of thorns, and with the words of a prayer.

Stafford.' He backs the stranger into the light. When he sees his face, not

History is always changing behind us, and the past changes a little every time we retell it.

May 29, the Central Committee of the Sections goes into "permanent session" — what a fine, crisis-ridden sound it has, that term!

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:

One of the priests says, 'Madam, she is very holy person. Her speech is inspired.' 'Get her out of my way,' Anne says. 'Lightning will strike you,' the nun tells Henry. He laughs uncertainly. Norfolk erupts into the group, teeth clenched, fist raised. 'Drag her back to her whorehouse, before she feels this, by God!

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.   When

He is not to suffer, because in France the age of barbarism is over, superseded by a machine, approved by a committee.

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?

It is not the stars that make us, Dr. Butts, it is circumstance and necessità, the choices we make under pressure; our virtues make us, but virtues are not enough, we must deploy our vices at times. Or don't you agree?

Why does the future feel so much like the past, the uncanny clammy touch of it, the rustle of bridal sheet or shroud, the crackle of fire in a shuttered room? Like breath misting glass, like the nightingale's trace on the air, like a wreath of incense, like vapour, like water, like scampering feet and laughter in the dark.

She had built a little house for love, and it was flattened by one remark. Now she lives in the wreckage

Bawling, strong, one hour old, plucked from the cradle: he kissed the infant's fluffy skull and said, I shall be as tender to you as my father was not to me. For what's the point of breeding children, if each generation does not improve on what went before?

Only the previous year, the Assembly had debated the question of capital punishment, and the popular deputy Robespierre had actually pleaded for it to be abolished. They said he still felt stongly about the question, was hopeful of success. But that deep-thinking man, M. Sanson, feels that M. Robespierre is out of step with public opinion, on this point.

I see that both the living and the dead commute, riding their familiar trains. I am not, as you will have gathered, a person who needs false excitement, or simulated innovation. I am willing, though, to tear up the timetable and take some new routes; and I know I shall find, at some unlikely terminus, a hand that is meant to rest in mine.

In his family the dead were much discussed. He absorbed the content of these conversations and transmuted them into what passed for memory. This serves the purpose. The dead don't come back, to quibble or correct.