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"He looks around at his guests. All are prepared. A Latin grace; English would be his choice, but he will suit his company. Who cross themselves ostentatiously, in papist style. Who look at him, expectant. He shouts for the waiters. The doors burst open. Sweating men heave the platters to the table. It seems the meat is fresh, in fact not slaughtered yet. It is just a minor breach of etiquette. The company must sit and salivate. The Boleyns are laid at his hand to be carved."
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"Conventional manners are a kind of literacy test for the alien who comes among us."
"Etiquette means behaving yourself a little better than is absolutely essential."
"I am always saying "Glad to've met you" to somebody I'm not at all glad I met. If you want to stay alive, you have to say that stuff, though."
"When you have told anyone you have left him a legacy the only decent thing to do is to die at once."
"He who observes etiquette but objects to lying is like someone who dresses fashionably but wears no vest."
"Audiences who behave obscene toward prominent people have no clue that their opinions can result others to have a bad impression on them."
"Sometimes it is better to refrain from engaging in conversation because making no impression is better than making a bad impression."
"It is your turn to say something now, Mr. Darcy. I talked about the dance, and you ought to make some kind of remark on the size of the room, or the number of couples."
Explore more quotes by Hilary Mantel
"It is the absence of facts that frightens people: the gap you open, into which they pour their fears, fantasies, desires."
"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."
"Every time you go to see Hamlet you don't expect it to have a happy ending...you're still enthralled. (Interview BBC Radio 4 Today 17 October 2012.)"
"Abroad? Oh no. I went to England in '91, and you stood in the garden at Fontenay and berated me. He shook his head. "This is my nation. Here I stay. A man can't carry his country on the soles of his shoes."
"History is always changing behind us, and the past changes a little every time we retell it."
"He knows different now. It's the living that chase the dead. The long bones and skulls are tumbled from their shrouds, and words like stones thrust into their rattling mouths: we edit their writings, we rewrite their lives. Thomas More had spread the rumor that Little Bilney, chained to the stake, had recanted as the fire was set. It wasn't enough for him to take Bilney's life away; he had to take his death too."
"Fiction leaves us so much work to do, allows the individual so much input; you have to see, you have to hear, you have to taste the madeleine, and while you are seemingly passive in your chair, you have to travel."
"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."
"He draws a line under his conclusions. Says, 'Gregory, what should I do about the great worm?' 'Send a commission against it, sir,' the boy says. 'It must be put down.' He gives his son a long look. 'You do know it's Arthur Cobbler's tales?' Gregory gives him a long look back. 'Yes, I do know.' He sounds regretful. 'But it makes people so happy when I believe them."
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