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There is so much else in the world that is more interesting [ than monarchy].

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
Monarchy
Interesting
Else
Much
World

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It is almost a joke, but a joke that nobody tells.
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Like a historian, I interpret, select, discard, shape, simplify. Unlike a historian, I make up people's thoughts.
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As a writer, you owe it to yourself not to get stuck in a rut of looking at the world in a certain way.
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Though I have never thought of myself as a book collector, there are shelves in our house browsed so often, on so many rainy winter nights, that the contents have seeped into me as if by osmosis.
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To a Brit of my generation, one of the most objectionable things about [Margaret] Thatcher is her falsity. She is a total construct. For one thing, she had a made-over accent.
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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.
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I think if the monarchy were removed tomorrow, it wouldn't have a huge effect on the national mind-set.
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Fortitude. ... It means fixity of purpose. It means endurance. It means having the strength to live with what constrains you.
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When people begin to talk about our island story my hackles rise. It is deluded and conservative.
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I am very happy in second-hand bookshops would a gardener not be happy in a garden?
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If you have a good story idea, don't assume it must form a prose narrative. It may work better as a play, a screenplay or a poem. Be flexible.
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She is very plain. What does Henry see in her?' He thinks she's stupid. He finds it restful.
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