Writers do not want to think they are less rational than other people, and at the mercy of compulsions, but in their hearts they know they are like those people who are taken for walks by their dogs, towed through hedges and ditches by an untrained sub-human energy. Hilary Mantel compulsionditchdog share on social
My first two novels were very black comedies. Hilary Mantel blackcomedynovel Change image and share on social
I spend a lot of my time talking to the dead, but since I get paid for it, no one thinks I'm mad. Hilary Mantel deadlotmad Change image and share on social
Once you're labeled as mentally ill, and that's in your medical notes, then anything you say can be discounted as an artefact of your mental illness. Hilary Mantel artefactdiscountill Change image and share on social
Novelists, it seems to me, are the very last people who should be asked to comment on the news of the day, and sooner or later, when they have been pilloried for their views, most of them recognise this. Hilary Mantel askcommentday share on social
I think if I hadn't become a writer I would just have suppressed that part of my personality. I think I would have put it in a box that I never opened. Hilary Mantel boxopenpart Change image and share on social
I think it took me half a page of 'Wolf Hall' to think: 'This is the novel I should have been writing all along.' Hilary Mantel halfhallpage Change image and share on social
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. Hilary Mantel bookbrowsecollector Change image and share on social
'Wolf Hall' attempts to duplicate not the historian's chronology but the way memory works: in leaps, loops, flashes. Hilary Mantel attemptchronologyduplicate Change image and share on social
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 audiencebookmarket Change image and share on social