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"You learn nothing about men by snubbing them and crushing their pride. You must ask them what it is they can do in this world, that they alone can do."
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"In every bad situation we have to see Satan's motives behind a person's actions."
"I'm inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores."
"Due to the need to co-exist with these inhuman and inconsiderate people, we will obviously be disturbed by their acts; something which if we look at closely actually means that we too could be affecting some other people negatively every once in a while."
"I am simply impressed by the unexpected insights which shower down on me when my job is to imagine, as contrasted with the woodenly familiar ideas which clutter my desk when my job is to tell the truth."
"It is at the edge of intelligence that wisdom awaits."
"In knowledge there is strength, in understanding there is might, and in wisdom there is power."
"Grass is never green by accident."
"Sometimes, how others look at it must not be how you should see it! Sometimes, how it means to others must not be how it should mean to you! Sometimes in life, things must have a different meaning to you, but positively; then you may be able to understand people and the mission, and accomplish the vision, with a good sense humor, seriousness and understanding, insight and wit, tenacity and distinctiveness, to the very end of your true strength!"
"Now and then it is okay to get lost to find yourself in a new way."
"It is the obvious which is so difficult to see most of the time. People say 'It's as plain as the nose on your face.' But how much of the nose on your face can you see, unless someone holds a mirror up to you?"
Explore more quotes by Hilary Mantel
"The trouble with England, he thinks, is that it's so poor in gesture. We shall have to develop a hand signal for 'Back off, our prince is fucking this man's daughter.' He is surprised that the Italians have not done it. Though perhaps they have, and he just never caught on."
"His suppressed grief becomes anger. But what can he do with anger? It must also be suppressed."
"This revolution - will it be a living?''We must hope so. Look, I have to go, I'm visiting a client. He's going to be hanged tomorrow.''Is that usual?''Oh, they always hang my clients. Even in property and matrimonial cases."
"The way I tell it, he says to Fitzwilliam, you would think that the blow on the head had improved him. That he actually set out to get it. That every monarch needs a blow on the head, from time to time."
"He has never told anyone this story. He doesn't mind talking to Richard, to Rafe about his past--within reason--but he doesn't mean to give away pieces of himself."
"When a man admits guilt we have to believe him. We cannot set ourselves to proving to him that he is wrong. Otherwise the law courts would never function."
"Concentrate on sharpening your memory and peeling your sensibility. Cut every page you write by at least one third. Stop constructing those piffling little similes of yours. Work out what it is you want to say. Then say it in the most direct and vigorous way you can. Eat meat. Drink blook. Give up your social life and don't think you can have friends. Rise in the quiet hours of the night and prick your fingertips and use the blood for ink, that will cure you of persiflage!"
"Some readers read a book as if it were an instruction manual, expecting to understand everything first time, but of course when you write, you put into every sentence an overflow of meaning, and you create in every sentence as many resonances and double meanings and ambiguities as you can possibly pack in there, so that people can read it again and get something new each time."
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