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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| 0ff2c1f | He reaches for his pen. He yawns and puts it down and picks it up again. I shall be found dead at my desk, he thinks, like the poet Petrarch. The poet wrote many unsent letters: he wrote to Cicero, who died twelve hundred years before he was born. He wrote to Homer, who possibly never even existed; but I, I have enough to do with Lord Lisle, and the fish traps, and the Emperor's galleons tossing on the Middle Sea. Between one dip of the pen.. | Hilary Mantel | ||
| 6abb7fa | It's not easy to speak of nonexistence, even if you've already commissioned your tomb. | Hilary Mantel | ||
| 8017b5a | I said to my mother, Henry VII is interesting. No he's not, my mother said. | history mother-and-daughter historical-fiction | Hilary Mantel | |
| c7418ba | His suppressed grief becomes anger. But what can he do with anger? It must also be suppressed. | grief suppressed-anger an-occult-history-of-britain thomas-cromwell anger suppression | Hilary Mantel | |
| e0b7275 | Saint-Just read for the next two hours his report on the plots of the Dantonist faction. He had imagined, when he wrote it, that he had the accused man before him; he had not amended it. If Danton were really before him, this reading would be punctuated by the roars of his supporters from the galleries, by his own self-justificatory roaring; but Saint-Just addressed the air, and there was a silence, which deepened and fed on itself. He read.. | Hilary Mantel | ||
| e611e1a | The main thing is, the constraints have come off style. What we are saying now is that the Revolution does not proceed in a pitiless, forward direction, its politics and its language becoming ever more gross and simplistic: the Revolution is always flexible, subtle, elegant. | politics | Hilary Mantel | |
| c5fcfd7 | Where is Richard, do you know?" "Chopping onions on the back step. Oh, you mean Master Richard? Upstairs. Eating. Where's anybody?" | Hilary Mantel | ||
| bbeca1c | Oh, you are not disappointing," Henry says. "But the moment you are, I will let you know." | Hilary Mantel | ||
| 691a933 | 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. | lies truth hilary-mantel | Hilary Mantel | |
| 25ad613 | Leases, writes, statutes, all are written to be read and each person reads them by the light of self-interest. | Hilary Mantel | ||
| d094ef9 | If life is a chain of gold, sometimes God hangs a charm on it. | Hilary Mantel | ||
| 351668f | There are some strange cold people in this world. It is priests, I think...Training themselves out of natural feeling. They mean it for the best, of course. | Hilary Mantel | ||
| 9207565 | He is not a man wedded to action, Boleyn, but rather a man who stands by, smirking and stroking his beard; he thinks he looks enigmatic, but instead he looks as if he's pleasuring himself. | humor | Hilary Mantel | |
| 6a5febb | 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 | wolf-hall thomas-cromwell henry-viii | Hilary Mantel | |
| 04a7367 | Already d'Anton did not believe this. He recognized it as a disclaimer that Camille would issue from time to time in the hope of disguising the fact that he was an inveterate hell-raiser. | Hilary Mantel | ||
| fe61657 | Sometimes I'm at stool all night." 507" | Hilary Mantel | ||
| a6155bd | He, Cromwell, watches. They are not the same couple from day to day: sometimes doting, sometimes chilly and distanced. The billing and cooing, on the whole, is the more painful to watch." 516" | Hilary Mantel | ||
| d517dae | His sister Kat, her husband, Morgan Williams, have been plucked from this life as fast as his daughters were taken, one day walking and talking and next day cold as stones, tumbled into their Thames-side graves and dug in beyond reach of the tide, beyond sight and smell of the river; deaf now to the sound of Putney's cracked church bell, to the smell of wet ink, of hops, of malted barley, and the scent, still animal, of woolen bales; dead t.. | Hilary Mantel | ||
| ec57513 | 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." | Hilary Mantel | ||
| 8fa652d | In Paris the swaying lanterns are lit in the streets; lights shine through water, fuzzy, diffuse. Saint-Just sits by an insufficient fire, in a poor light. He is a Spartan after all, and Spartans don't need home comforts. He has begun his report, his list of accusations; if Robespierre saw it now, he would tear it up, but in a few days' time it will be the very thing he needs. Sometimes he stops, half-glances over his shoulder. He feels som.. | Hilary Mantel | ||
| 4a960c0 | For hundreds of years the monks have held the pen, and what they have written is what we take to be our history, but I do not believe it really is. I believe they have suppressed the history they don't like, and written one that is favourable to Rome.' Henry | Hilary Mantel | ||
| 9d66033 | Cardinal Campeggio has implored Katherine to bow to the king's will, accept that her marriage is invalid and retire to a convent. Certainly, she says sweetly, she will become a nun: if the king will become a monk. | wit | Hilary Mantel | |
| 935b28e | When the cardinal came to a closed door he would flatter it--oh beautiful yielding door! Then he would try tricking it open. And you are just the same, just the same." He pours himself some of the duke's present. "But in the last resort, you just kick it in." | thomas-cromwell | Hilary Mantel | |
| 0b30057 | He looked the Prince up and down, like a hangman taking his measurements. 'Of course there will be a revolution,' he said. 'You are making a nation of Cromwells. But we can go beyond Cromwell, I hope. In fifteen years you tyrants and parasites will be gone. We shall have set up a republic, on the purest Roman model. | revolution | Hilary Mantel | |
| 6c6830f | 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. | humour | Hilary Mantel | |
| 85b1ec5 | Tell me, why do you think I do this?" The king sounds curious. "Out of lust? Is that what you think?" Kill a cardinal? Divide your country? Split the church? 'Seems extravagant,' Chapuys murmurs." | Hilary Mantel | ||
| 1a7e1a1 | Men, it is supposed want to pass their wisdom to their sons; he would give a great deal to protect his own son from a quartr of what he knows. | Hilary Mantel | ||
| 4133470 | And your man?' He hesitates. 'Long dead too?' It is the most delicate way that can be contrived, to ask a man if he has killed someone. | Hilary Mantel | ||
| 3b220eb | We don't have to invite pain in, he thinks. It's waiting for us: sooner rather than later. | Hilary Mantel | ||
| 4b6302a | Illness strips you back to an authentic self, but not one you need to meet. Too much is claimed for authenticity. Painfully we learn to live in the world, and to be false. Then all our defences are knocked down in one sweep. In sickness we can't avoid knowing about our body and what it does, its animal aspect, its demands. We see things that never should be seen; our inside is outside, the body's sewer pipes and vaults exposed to view, as i.. | Hilary Mantel | ||
| 62ac3b0 | Fabre looked up, his mobile face composed. "Good-bye," he said. "Georges-Jacques--study law. Law is a weapon." | Hilary Mantel | ||
| 1ee45bf | A decade of self-aggrandisement, since his daughter flashed her cunny at the king, has made Boleyn rich and settled and confident. | Hilary Mantel | ||
| 78ed1b1 | At least, he thinks, the fellow has the wit to see what this is about: not one year's grudge or two, but a fat extract from the book of grief, kept since the cardinal came down. He says, 'Life pays you out, Norris. Don't you find? | Hilary Mantel | ||
| 04450f4 | there are liasons which would put yours in the shade... | Hilary Mantel | ||
| dc26838 | He runs his eye along the row of knives in their racks, the cleavers for splitting bones. He picks one up, looks at its edge, decides it needs sharpening and says, "Do you think I look like a murderer? In your good opinion?" A silence. After a while, Thurston proffers, "At this moment, master, I would have to say..." | murder humor murderers knives | Hilary Mantel | |
| 255d1ae | We may be tainted with pragmatism, but it only needs a clash of personalities to remind us of our principles. | Hilary Mantel | ||
| c6688fd | Retaining the phrases was a treacherous enterprise, however. His greatest problem these days had been boredom. Now he had discovered its loyal assistant--poor memory! | Norman Mailer | ||
| 43e2d49 | Einai mallon phanero ap' osa eipa eos tora oti okhi mono eimai uparxistes, alla phtano kai sto semeio na po oti den gnorizoume te phuse mas. Aplos mathainoume ton eauto mas oso zoume te zoe mas. Kai oso mathainoume toso genniountai mesa mas erotemata. | Norman Mailer | ||
| f43be87 | the Waldorf looked like one of the dead and empty spaces which collect about the exit of a man who has lost a million in an hour. | Norman Mailer | ||
| 8de9582 | Why shouldn't I? I demand silently. Why shouldn't I become a famous writer? Like Norman Mailer. Or Philip Roth. And F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hemmingway and all those other men. Why can't I be like them? I mean, what is the point of becoming a writer if no one reads what you've written? Damn Viktor Greene and The New School. Why do I have to keep proving myself all of the time? Why can't I be like L'il, with everyone praising and encouraging .. | writing inspirational fame | Candace Bushnell | |
| b91fdf1 | You know," he laughed easily, "with all the goddam drinkin' Ah've done, Ah still can't remember the taste of it unless Ah got the bottle right with me." | Norman Mailer | ||
| d2ba2c0 | He knew that again now. Hennessey's death had opened to Croft vistas of such omnipotence that he was afraid to consider it directly. All day the fact hovered about his head, tantalizing him with odd dreams and portents of power. | Norman Mailer | ||
| 7d69850 | Roth was irritated. Just because he was a Jew too, they always assumed he felt the same way about things. It made him feel a little frustrated. No doubt some of his bad luck had come because he was one, but that was unfair; it wasn't as if he took an interest, it was just an accident of birth. | Norman Mailer | ||
| 0438f5e | American's capacity for real estate improvement; build yourself a house, grow fat in it, and die. | Norman Mailer |