But my sins are my strength, he thinks; the sins I have done, that others have not even found the opportunity of committing. I hug them close; they're mine.
Hilary MantelWhat 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.
Hilary MantelI said to my mother, Henry VII is interesting. No he's not, my mother said.
Hilary MantelTags: history historical-fiction mother-and-daughter henry-vii
Fortitude. ... It means fixity of purpose. It means endurance. It means having the strength to live with what constrains you.
Hilary MantelThe reader may ask how to tell fact from fiction. A rough guide: anything that seems particularly unlikely is probably true.
Hilary MantelTags: historical-fiction
Edward Seymour says, ‘You should have been a bishop, Cromwell.’
‘Edward,’ he says, ‘I should have been Pope.
Tags: humour
He looks at Norris, exasperated. He seems to think that with eloquence, with sincerity, with frankness, he can change what is happening. The whole court has seen him slobbering over the queen. How could he expect to go shopping with his eyes, and finger the goods no doubt, and not have an account to settle at the end of it?
Hilary MantelYou once told me, when you visited my house, how Anne conducts herself with men: she says, “Yes, yes, yes, yes, no.”’ Wyatt nods; he recognises those words; he looks sorry he spoke them. ‘Now you may have to transpose one word of that testimony. Yes, yes, yes, no, yes.
Hilary MantelHe finds he cannot think of the dying men at all. Into his mind instead strays the picture of More on the scaffold, seen through the veil of rain: his body, already dead, folding back neatly from the impact of the axe. The cardinal when he fell had no persecutor more relentless than Thomas More. Yet, he thinks, I did not hate him. I exercised my skills to the utmost to persuade him to reconcile with the king. And I thought I would win him, I really thought I would, for he was tenacious of the world, tenacious of his person, and had a good deal to live for. In the end he was his own murderer. He wrote and wrote and he talked and talked, then suddenly at a stroke he cancelled himself. If ever a man came close to beheading himself, Thomas More was that man.
Hilary MantelTags: enemies reflection
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.
Hilary MantelTags: enemies
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