Quotes by Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall

“Men say," Liz reaches for her scissors, "'I can't endure it when women cry'--just as people say, 'I can't endure this wet weather.' As if it were nothing to do with the men at all, the crying. Just...”

“A lie is no less a lie because it is a thousand years old. Your undivided church has liked nothing better than persecuting its own members, burning them and hacking them apart when they stood by th...”

“I once had every hope, he says. The world corrupts me, I think. Or perhaps it's just the weather. It pulls me down and makes me think like you, that one should shrink inside, down and down to a lit...”

“I picked up a snake once. In Italy.""Why did you do that?""For a bet.""Was it poisonous?""We didn't know. That was the point of the bet.""Did it bite you?""Of course.""Why of course?""It wouldn't b...”

“He runs his eye along the row of knives in their racks, the cleavers for splitting bones. He picks one up, looks at its edge, decides it needs sharpening and says, "Do you think I look like a murde...”

“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.”

“As More says, it hardly makes a man a hero, to agree to stand and burn once he is chained to a stake. I have written books and I cannot unwrite them. I cannot unbelieve what I believe. I cannot unl...”

“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 writing...”

“When I was small I dreamed of demons. I thought they were under my bed, but you said, it can't be so, you don't get demons our side of the river, the guards won't let them over London Bridge.”

“Have you ever observed that when a man gets a son he takes all the credit, and when he gets a daughter he blames his wife? And if they do not breed at all, we say it is because her womb is barren. ...”

“The gift blesses the giver.”

“It's just that you are practiced at persuading, and sometimes it's quite difficult, sir to distinguish being persuaded by you from being knocked down in street and stamped on.Pg.406”

“You mustn't stand about. Come home with me to dinner.No. More shakes his head. I would rather be blown around on the river and go home hungry. If I could trust you only to put food in my mouth but...”

“Is a woman bound to wifely obedience, when the result will be to turn her out of the estate of wife?”

“Cardinal Campeggio has implored Katherine to bow to the king's will, accept that her marriage is invalid and retire to a convent. Certainly, she says sweetly, she will become a nun: if the king wil...”