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Hilary Mantel


English
July 6, 1952
Writer
croda da lago tofane dolomites
My first two novels were very black comedies.


Hilary Mantel
Tags: Very Were First
beach traces sand footprints
A novel should be a book of questions, not a book of answers.


Hilary Mantel
Tags: Should Book Novel
clouds dramatic cumulus sky
What fascinates me are the turning points where history could have been different.


Hilary Mantel
Tags: History Me Been
denmark sun sky sea nature summer
When you write, you are not either sex. But when you're read you are definitely gendered.


Hilary Mantel
Tags: You Write Read
almsee schladming lake nature
History is always changing behind us, and the past changes a little every time we retell it.


Hilary Mantel
Like every writer, I'm drawn by unlikely juxtapositions, precisely-dated and once-only collisions between people from different worlds.
Hilary Mantel
Tags: People Like Every
Psychics tap into what is collective: our regret and our sense of time going by; our common repression and anxieties.
Hilary Mantel
Tags: Time Our Going
wave spray foam sea water surf
I've got so many ideas, and sometimes the more exhausted my body gets, the more active my mind gets.


Hilary Mantel
Tags: More Many Got
I'm a very organised and rational and linear thinker, and you have to stop all that to write a novel.
Hilary Mantel
Tags: You Very Write
But an experienced reader is also a self-aware and critical reader. I can't remember ever reading a story without judging it.
Hilary Mantel
Tags: Ever Also Without
It follows that if you are not a mother you are not a grandmother. Your life has become unpunctuated, whereas the lives of other women around you have these distinct phases.
Hilary Mantel
Tags: Women You Life
The old always think the world is getting worse; it is for the young, equipped with historical facts, to point out that, compared with 1509, or even 1939, life in 2009 is sweet as honey.
Hilary Mantel
Tags: Think Out Always
The novelist has a responsibility to adhere to the facts as closely as possible, and if they are inconvenient, that's where the art comes in. You must work with intractable facts and find the dramatic shape inside them.
Hilary Mantel
Tags: Work You Them
Write a book you'd like to read. If you wouldn't read it, why would anybody else? Don't write for a perceived audience or market. It may well have vanished by the time your book's ready.
Hilary Mantel
Tags: Time You Like
Life being so short, and the possible books to write so many, it's good to function by night as well as by day; but would anybody become a writer if they realised at the outset what the working hours were?
Hilary Mantel
Tags: Good Life Would
When narratives fracture, when words fail, I take consolation from the part of my life that always works: the stationery order. The mail-order stationery people supply every need from royal blue Quink to a dazzling variety of portable hard drives.
Hilary Mantel
Writers displace their anxiety on to the tools of the trade. It's better to say that you haven't got the right pencil than to say you can't write, or to blame your computer for losing your chapter than face up to your feeling that it's better lost.
Hilary Mantel
Tags: You Up Your
When I was thin, I had no notion of what being fat is like. When I worked in a department store, I had sold clothes to women of most sizes, so I should have known; but perhaps you have to experience the state from the inside, to understand what fat is like.
Hilary Mantel
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.
Hilary Mantel
Tags: Music You People