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In my 20s I was in constant pain from undiagnosed endometriosis. With no prospect of a cure, I decided I needed a career - writing - that could accommodate being ill.

Hilary Mantel

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Hilary Mantel
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: July 6
Essayist
Film Critic
Literary Critic
Novelist
Poet Lawyer
Writer
Hilary Mary Thompson
Dame Hilary Mary Mantel
Needed
Prospect
Pain
Cure
Writing
Cures
Ill
Constant
Decided
Career
Careers
Accommodate

More quotes by Hilary Mantel

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People who wrote literary novels about the past probably didn't want them pegged as historical fiction. Certainly that was true in England.
Hilary Mantel
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Fear of commitment lies behind the fear of writing.
Hilary Mantel
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History is always changing behind us, and the past changes a little every time we retell it.
Hilary Mantel
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Over the city lies the sweet, rotting odor of yesterday's unrecollected sins.
Hilary Mantel
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She is very plain. What does Henry see in her?' He thinks she's stupid. He finds it restful.
Hilary Mantel
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[Margaret] Thatcher could fake her class background, but she couldn't fake the quality of her mind.
Hilary Mantel
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My concern is less the monarchy as such than the attempt of a fading colonial power to hang onto grandeur.
Hilary Mantel
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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
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[Margaret Thatcher] admitted to being the daughter of her father but not the daughter of her mother!
Hilary Mantel
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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
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When people begin to talk about our island story my hackles rise. It is deluded and conservative.
Hilary Mantel
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Like a historian, I interpret, select, discard, shape, simplify. Unlike a historian, I make up people's thoughts.
Hilary Mantel
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By the tits of Holy Agnes
Hilary Mantel
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No ruler in the history of the world has ever been able to afford a war. They're not affordable things. No prince ever says, 'This is my budget, so this is the kind of war I can have.
Hilary Mantel
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[Margaret Thatcher] aroused such strong loathing in so many people. That's the fact that interests me.
Hilary Mantel
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For what's the point of breeding children, if each generation does not improve on what went before.
Hilary Mantel
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You think you're writing one historical novel and it turns into three, and I'm quite used to a short story turning into a novel - that's happened through my whole career.
Hilary Mantel
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It was unfortunate for other women who might come after [Margaret Thatcher] that the first woman to become prime minister was a male impersonator.
Hilary Mantel
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I've got so many ideas, and sometimes the more exhausted my body gets, the more active my mind gets.
Hilary Mantel
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Busyness, I feel increasingly, is the writer's curse and downfall. You read too much and write too readily, you become cut off from your inner life, from the flow of your own thoughts, and turned far too much towards the outside world.
Hilary Mantel