Hilary Mantel - People Quotes

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It is the absence of facts that frightens people: the gap you open, into which they pour their fears, fantasies, desires.

Hilary Mantel
It is better not to try people, not to force them to desperation. Make them prosper; out of superfluidity, they will be generous. Full bellies breed gentle manners. The pinch of famine makes monsters.

Hilary Mantel
The fate of peoples is made like this, two men in small rooms. Forget the coronations, the conclaves of cardinals, the pomp and processions. This is how the world changes: a counter pushed across a table, a pen stroke that alters the force of a phrase, a woman's sigh as she passes and leaves on the air a trail of orange flower or rose water; her hand pulling close the bed curtain, the discreet sigh of flesh against flesh.

Hilary Mantel
When you are writing laws you are testing words to find their utmost power. Like spells, they have to make things happen in the real world, and like spells, they only work if people believe in them.

Hilary Mantel
At New Year's he had given Anne a present of silver forks with handles of rock crystal. He hopes she will use them to eat with, not to stick in people.

Hilary Mantel
But who would hold up his head, if people judged us by what we were like at twenty?

Hilary Mantel
Florence and Milan had given him ideas more flexible than those of people who'd stayed at home.

Hilary Mantel