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"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, don't just stick there scowling at the problem. But don't make telephone calls or go to a party; if you do, other people's words will pour in where your lost words should be. Open a gap for them, create a space. Be patient. [25 February 2010]"
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!["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, don't just stick there scowling at the problem. But don't make telephone calls or go to a party; if you do, other people's words will pour in where your lost words should be. Open a gap for them, create a space. Be patient. [25 February 2010]"](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAICRAEAOw==)
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"It took three years to put Shakespeare's words together, there were a lot of words to be studied and a lot of words to be sorted out, and it proved to be a major project."
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Personal Development
"Now the writing in the head, I definitely do every day, thinking about how I want to phrase something or how I'd like to rephrase something I've already written."
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Personal Development
"You do everything by the book, like everybody else, you get the same results s everybody else."
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Personal Development
"I do not plan my fiction any more than I normally plan woodland walks; I follow the path that seems most promising at any given point, not some itinerary decided before entry."
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Personal Development
"The importance to the writer of first writing must be out of all proportion of the actual value of what is written."
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Personal Development
"Bird by bird buddy. Just take it bird by bird."
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Personal Development
"Rust through washing never became white."
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Personal Development
"The practice of forgiving is a sequential practice that begins with excusing someone."
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Personal Development
"There are three secrets to writing a novel. Unfortunately nobody knows what they are."
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Personal Development
"Ideally a painter (and, generally, an artist) should not become conscious of his insights: without taking the detour through his conscious reflection, his progressive steps, mysterious even to himself, should enter so swiftly into the work that he is unable to recognize them in the moment of transition."
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"Those sectaries in Europe who are always expecting the end of the world, but who hope that, after the earth has been consumed by fire, they will be seated in glory: grilled a little, crisp at the edges and blackened in parts, but still, thanks be to God, alive for eternity, and seated at his right hand."
Faith
"He feared, in his secret heart, that one day in company the baby would sit up and speak; that it would engage his eyes, appraise him, and say, 'You prick."
Humanity
"I said to my mother, Henry VII is interesting. No he's not, my mother said."
History
"I aim to make the fiction flexible so that it bends itself around the facts as we have them. Otherwise I don't see the point. Nobody seems to understand that. Nobody seems to share my approach to historical fiction. I suppose if I have a maxim, it is that there isn't any necessary conflict between good history and good drama."
Storytelling
"Law of Suspects. Suspects are those: who have in any way aided tyranny (royal tyranny, Brissotin tyranny...); who cannot show that they have performed their civic duties; who do not starve, and yet have no visible means of support; who have been refused certificates of citizenship by their Sections; who have been removed from public office by the Convention or its representatives; who belong to an aristocratic family, and have not given proof of constant and extraordinary revolutionary fervor; or who have emigrated."
Law
"One summer at the fag end of the nineties, I had to go out of London to talk to a literary society, of the sort that must have been old-fashioned when the previous century closed. When the day came, I wondered why I'd agreed to it; but yes is easier than no, and of course when you make a promise you think the time will never arrive: that there will be a nuclear holocaust, or something else diverting."
Commitment
"It is not easy to talk about a condition once dismissed as 'the career women's disease'. But women will continue to suffer until we realise the cost of ignoring it."
Health
"Give me a book, she said. "A book of sermons, anything."What do you want a book for?"I want words. I've got to have more words. I was kept stupid on purpose."
Knowledge
"This visit has compacted the court's quarrels and intrigues, trapped them in the small space within the town's walls. The travelers have become as intimate with each other as cards in a pack: contiguous, but their paper eyes blind."
Observation
"It's not easy to diagnose because depending where the endometrial deposits are, the symptoms can be quite different. It's an unrecognized problem among teenage girls, and it's something that every young woman who has painful menstruation should be aware of ... it's a condition that is curable if it's caught early. If not, if it's 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]"
Health
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