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Why Are We So Attached To The Severities Of The Past? Why Are We So Proud Of Having Endured Our Fathers And Our Mothers, The Fireless Days And The Meatless Days, The Cold Winters And The Sharp Tongues? It's Not As If We Had A Choice.

-Hilary Mantel

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Why Are We So

Hilary Mantel

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Why Are We So Attached To The Severities Of The Past? Why Are We So Proud Of Having Endured Our Fathers And Our Mothers, The Fireless Days And The Meatless Days, The Cold Winters And The Sharp Tongues? It's Not As If We Had A Choice.

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[margaret Thatcher] Assumed Somehow That This Would Get The Woman Voter And All Those Juvenile Male Voters Who Wanted A Well-regulated Household With A Woman Who Knew What She Should Be Doing.

'show Up At The Desk' Is One Of The First Rules Of Writing, But For 'wolf Hall' I Was About 30 Years Late.

Fiction Isn't Made By Scraping The Bones Of Topicality For The Last Shreds And Sinews, To Be Processed Into Mechanically Recovered Prose. Like Journalism, It Deals In Ideas As Well As Facts, But Also In Metaphors, Symbols And Myths.

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There Is So Much Else In The World That Is More Interesting [ Than Monarchy].

People Who Wrote Literary Novels About The Past Probably Didn't Want Them Pegged As Historical Fiction. Certainly That Was True In England.

My First Career Ambitions Involved Turning Into A Boy; I Intended To Be Either A Railway Guard Or A Knight Errant.

Every Leader Operates Under The Threat Of Assassination.

I Can't Think Of Any Male Politician Who Magnetizes Love And Hate - Mainly Hate - The Way [margaret Thatcher] Did.

If The Monarchy Were Removed Tomorrow, It Wouldn't Have A Huge Effect On The National Mind-set. The Monarchy Is Mildly Interesting And Largely Harmless. I Can't Find I Can Get Very Heated About It. In The Next Couple Of Generations, It Is Bound To Go. There Is So Much Else In The World That Is More Interesting.

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I Only Became A Novelist Because I Thought I Had Missed My Chance To Become A Historian.

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.

Historical Novels

It Is All Very Well Planning What You Will Do In Six Months, What You Will Do In A Year, But It’s No Good At All If You Don’t Have A Plan For Tomorrow.

As A Writer, You Owe It To Yourself Not To Get Stuck In A Rut Of Looking At The World In A Certain Way.

My First Book Was A Historical Novel. I Started Writing In 1974. In Those Days, Historical Novels Meant Ladies With Swelling Bosoms On The Cover. Basically, It Meant Historical Romance. It Was Not Respectable As A Genre.

Historical Novels

Beneath Every History, Another History.

[h]ope Takes You By The Throat Like A Stranger, It Makes Your Heart Leap.

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.

In Order To Successfully Impersonate Men, The Woman [margaret Thatcher] Launched A War.

When Narratives Fracture, When Words Fail, I Take Consolation From The Part Of My Life That Always Works: The Stationery Order. The Mail-order Stationery People Supply Every Need From Royal Blue Quink To A Dazzling Variety Of Portable Hard Drives.

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I Spend A Lot Of My Time Talking To The Dead, But Since I Get Paid For It, No One Thinks I'm Mad.

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What Is It We Are Hating? It Goes Beyond Politics. I Suppose That My Fascination With [margaret Thatcher] Is Not Just With Her Political Record But With Her As A Phenomenon.

You Can Be Merry With The King, You Can Share A Joke With Him. But As Thomas More Used To Say, It's Like Sporting With A Tamed Lion. You Tousle Its Mane And Pull Its Ears, But All The Time You're Thinking, Those Claws, Those Claws, Those Claws.

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Cravats Grow Higher, As If They Mean To Protect The Throat. The Highest Cravats In Public Life Will Be Worn By Citizen Antoine Saint-just, Of The National Convention And The Committee Of Public Safety. In The Dark And Harrowing Days Of '94, An Obscene Feminine Inversion Will Appear: A Thin Crimson Ribbon, Worn Round A Bare White Neck.

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If You Are Without Impulses, You Are, To A Degree, Without Joy..." 469

I Think I Would Have Been A Reasonably Good Lawyer. I Have A Faculty For Making Sense Of Mountains Of Information.

So Many Years Of Preparation, For What Was Called Adult Life: Was It For This?

I Think Psychologically [margaret Thatcher] Is Really Worth Studying. I Am Reading Charles Moore's Biography Of Her, And He Has Gotten Us Right There With A Woman Who Lived The Unexamined Life, And Lived It Deliberately, And Who Has Contempt For History, Even Her Own.

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The Worship Of Thomas More Goes Beyond Catholics.

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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.

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.

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.

Feminism Hasn't Failed, It's Just Never Been Tried.

Wolf Hall Attempts To Duplicate Not The Historian's Chronology But The Way Memory Works: In Leaps, Loops, Flashes.

I Was The Subject Of An Experiment In Love. I Lived My Life Under Her Gaze, Undergoing Certain Trials For Her So That She Would Not Have To Undergo Them For Herself. But, How Are Our Certainties Forged, Except By The Sweat And Tears Of Other People? If Your Parents Don't Teach You How To Live; You Learn It From Books; And Clever People Watch You Learn From Your Mistakes.

Watching Live Actors Onstage, In Something That Changes Night By Night, Real People Picking Up Cues From Each Other, It Concentrates You On The Process Rather Than The Result.

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It's Complementary. It's Fairly Clear Where The Boundaries Are. When I Start Telling You The Contents Of His Head, I Am Making It Up. But I Try To Make It Up Based On What Is On The Record. So Even My Wildest Speculations [on Thomas Cromwell] Will Have A Root Somewhere.

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Much Historical Fiction That Centers On Real People Has Always Been Deficient In Information, Lacking In Craft And Empty In Affect.

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To My Astonishment, When Wolf Hall Came Out, People Asked If I Made It Up - [thomas More] Burning Of Heretics. It Was Well Documented. And He Was Proud Of It! The Brits Love Lost Causes.

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By The Tits Of Holy Agnes

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Human Condition

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Procrastination

A Sea-green Sky: Lamps Blossoming White. This Is Marginal Land: Fields Of Strung Wire, Of Treadless Tyres In Ditches, Fridges Dead On Their Backs, And Starving Ponies Cropping The Mud. It Is A Landscape Running With Outcasts And Escapees, With Afghans, Turks And Kurds: With Scapegoats, Scarred With Bottle And Burn Marks, Limping From The Cities With Broken Ribs. The Life Forms Here Are Rejects, Or Anomalies: The Cats Tipped From Speeding Cars, And The Heathrow Sheep, Their Fleece Clotted With The Stench Of Aviation Fuel.

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My Concern Is Less The Monarchy As Such Than The Attempt Of A Fading Colonial Power To Hang Onto Grandeur.

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[margaret Thatcher] Admitted To Being The Daughter Of Her Father But Not The Daughter Of Her Mother!

I Think The Monarchy Today Is. . . Mildly Interesting And Largely Harmless. I Can't Find I Can Get Very Heated About It. In The Next Couple Of Generations, It Is Bound To Go.

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Over The City Lies The Sweet, Rotting Odor Of Yesterday's Unrecollected Sins.

I Think If The Monarchy Were Removed Tomorrow, It Wouldn't Have A Huge Effect On The National Mind-set.

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Fear Of Commitment Lies Behind The Fear Of Writing.

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Historical Novels

This Was An Idea Peculiar To Camille, Maximilien Thought, That The Worse Things Get, The Better They Get. No One Else Seems To Think This Way.

The Things You Think Are The Disasters In Your Life Are Not The Disasters Really. Almost Anything Can Be Turned Around: Out Of Every Ditch, A Path, If You Can Only See It.

Truth Can Break The Gates Down, Truth Can Howl In The Street; Unless Truth Is Pleasing, Personable And Easy To Like, She Is Condemned To Stay Whimpering At The Back Door.

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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.

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When I Came To Write My Thomas Cromwell Books, I Moved Onto The Center Ground Of English History, But I Was Never There Before. I Didn't Feel It Was My History Particularly, Coming From Northern Britain, Being Of Irish Extraction, Being A Cradle Catholic. The Image Of England I Grew Up With Felt Somewhere Else. There Was An Official England In Postcards, But It Wasn't One I Had Visited. But I Decided To March Onto The Center Ground And Occupy It Whether It Was Mine Or Not.

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Lives Of Others

It Was Unfortunate For Other Women Who Might Come After [margaret Thatcher] That The First Woman To Become Prime Minister Was A Male Impersonator.

When I Began To Read As An Adult, I Read Almost Exclusively Novelists Of A Generation Back. I Did The Russians, Then I Started Getting More Up To Date. When You Become Published And Become A Reviewer, Piles Of Books Come Along And You Are Pushed By Fashion And What You Are Commissioned To Do.

A Statute Is Written To Entrap Meaning, A Poem To Escape It.

She Is Very Plain. What Does Henry See In Her?'" "he Thinks She's Stupid. He Finds It Restful.

But An Experienced Reader Is Also A Self-aware And Critical Reader. I Can't Remember Ever Reading A Story Without Judging It.

It Was A Very Funny Conference. I Knew [christopher Hitchens] Before That. He Had Always Been A Good Angel To Me. He Once Stole A Phrase From Me That Came Out Of His Mouth On Television. I Saw His Eyes Move Sideways. I Thought, It's Alright, You Can Have It! The Conference Was Light On Women. Salman Rushdie Showed Up, They Were Doing Their Own Thing. I Didn't Feel Neglected!

Insights Don't Usually Arrive At My Desk, But Go Into Notebooks When I'm On The Move. Or Half-asleep.

Why Are We So Attached To The Severities Of The Past? Why Are We So Proud Of Having Endured Our Fathers And Our Mothers, The Fireless Days And The Meatless Days, The Cold Winters And The Sharp Tongues? It's Not As If We Had A Choice.

Imagine The Consequences Of Having The First Woman Prime Minister Who Is The Milk Snatcher. [margaret Thatcher] Takes Away The Nourishment Of The Nation.

History Is Always Changing Behind Us, And The Past Changes A Little Every Time We Retell It.

I Will Get Into Trouble, I Am Sure, Because Since My Kate Middleton Speech And Before, Certain Papers Were After Me. I Am Not Saying, However, That It Would Have Been Moral Or Right To Assassinate Mrs. [margaret] Thatcher, But I Know It Will Be Read That Way. I Know It Will Cause A Problem.

For What's The Point Of Breeding Children, If Each Generation Does Not Improve On What Went Before.

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.

Rafe Asks Him, Could The King's Freedom Be Obtained, Sir, With More Economy Of Means? Less Bloodshed? Look, He Says: Once You Have Exhausted The Process Of Negotiation And Compromise, One You Have Fixed On The Destruction Of An Enemy, That Destruction Must Be Swift And It Must Be Perfect. Before You Even Glance In His Direction, You Should Have His Name On A Warrant, The Ports Blocked, His Wife And Friends Bought, His Heir Under Your Protection, His Money In Your Strong Room And His Dog Running To Your Whistle. Before He Wakes In The Morning, You Should Have The Axe In Your Hand.

What [margaret Thatcher] Made A Play For Was The Acquisitive: Our Greedy Nature. She Set Aside Other Things Like An Identification With Community, Altruism. The Only Collective That She Understood Was: Rally Around And Slay The Enemy.

Read Becoming A Writer By Dorothea Brande. Then Do What It Says, Including The Tasks You Think Are Impossible. You Will Particularly Hate The Advice To Write First Thing In The Morning, But If You Can Manage It, It Might Well Be The Best Thing You Ever Do For Yourself. This Book Is About Becoming A Writer From The Inside Out. Many Later Advice Manuals Derive From It. You Don't really Need Any Others, Though If You Want To Boost Your Confidence, "how To" Books Seldom Do Any Harm. You Can Kick-start A Whole Book With Some Little Writing Exercise.

There's A Feeling Of Power In Reserve, A Power That Drives Right Through The Bone, Like The Shiver You Sense In The Shaft Of An Axe When You Take It Into Your Hand. You Can Strike, Or You Can Not Strike, And If You Choose To Hold Back The Blow, You Can Still Feel Inside You The Resonance Of The Omitted Thing.

For Myself, The Only Way I Know How To Make A Book Is To Construct It Like A Collage: A Bit Of Dialogue Here, A Scrap Of Narrative, An Isolated Description Of A Common Object, An Elaborate Running Metaphor Which Threads Between The Sequences And Holds Different Narrative Lines Together.

History Offers Us Vicarious Experience. It Allows The Youngest Student To Possess The Ground Equally With His Elders; Without A Knowledge Of History To Give Him A Context For Present Events, He Is At The Mercy Of Every Social Misdiagnosis Handed To Him.

I'm A Very Organised And Rational And Linear Thinker And You Have To Stop All That To Write A Novel.

He Once Thought It Himself, That He Might Die With Grief: For His Wife, His Daughters, His Sisters, His Father And Master The Cardinal. But Pulse, Obdurate, Keeps Its Rhythm. You Think You Cannot Keep Breathing, But Your Ribcage Has Other Ideas, Rising And Falling, Emitting Sighs. You Must Thrive In Spite Of Yourself; And So That You May Do It, God Takes Out Your Heart Of Flesh, And Gives You A Heart Of Stone.

[margaret Thatcher] Was Always Talking About What The Prudent Housewife Should Do And What The Prudent Housewife Knew.

Like Every Writer, I'm Drawn By Unlikely Juxtapositions, Precisely-dated And Once-only Collisions Between People From Different Worlds.

History Is A Set Of Skills Rather Than A Narrative.

[margaret Thatcher] Said There Was No Thing Such As Society. This Is What I Find So Interesting Psychologically. Where Did She Come From? She Had No Mother. Her Father Came From A Very Identifiable Background: Religious, Highly Conformist.

The Word 'however' Is Like An Imp Coiled Beneath Your Chair. It Induces Ink To Form Words You Have Not Yet Seen, And Lines To March Across The Page And Overshoot The Margin. There Are No Endings. If You Think So You Are Deceived As To Their Nature. They Are All Beginnings. Here Is One.

One Of The Frustrations Of Someone Like Thomas Cromwell Is That, Before They Step Into The Light Of History, And Become Extremely Well Documented, They Are Not Known. A King Might Be Well Documented But Not Everyone.

For Me, It Is About Using Everything That Is There And Using The Gaps In The Record, Figuring Out Why The Gaps Might Be There. And Then When You Move On To The Level Of What Historians Said, Laying The Interpretations Side By Side. You Also Have To Look Back At The Documents And Make Your Own Judgments. What The Record Says And What People Say About It. A Novelist Can Fill The Gaps In A Way That A Biographer Cannot.

Suppose Within Each Book There Is Another Book, And Within Every Letter On Every Page Another Volume Constantly Unfolding; But These Volumes Take No Space On The Desk. Suppose Knowledge Could Be Reduced To A Quintessence, Held Within A Picture, A Sign, Held Within A Place Which Is No Place. Suppose The Human Skull Were To Become Capacious, Spaces Opening Inside It, Humming Chambers Like Beehives.

I Am Sure That All Politicians Seek The Home Connection With The Voter. But [margaret Thatcher] Carried It To Extremes.

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.

I've Got So Many Ideas, And Sometimes The More Exhausted My Body Gets, The More Active My Mind Gets.

Florence And Milan Had Given Him Ideas More Flexible Than Those Of People Who'd Stayed At Home.

[margaret Thatcher] Was Pretending That Running A Country Was Like Running A Household, Which She Knew Wasn't True.

We Have A Number Of Very Powerful Women In The World Now - Mrs. [angela] Merkel, Who The Germans Call Mutti. What Did We Call Mrs. [margaret] Thatcher? When She Was Minister Of Education, She Stopped The Children's Free School Milk. This May Sound Quaint, But After The War We Were Such A Malnourished Nation That Part Of The Founding Of The Welfare State Were Public Health Initiatives. Every Little Schoolchild Got Milk. Mrs. Thatcher Stopped It. They Called Her "maggie Thatcher, Milk Snatcher."

It Is Almost A Joke, But A Joke That Nobody Tells.

You Can Have A Silence Full Of Words. A Lute Retains, In Its Bowl, The Notes It Has Played. The Viol, In Its Strings, Holds A Concord. A Shriveled Petal Can Hold Its Scent, A Prayer Can Rattle With Curses; An Empty House, When The Owners Have Gone Out, Can Still Be Loud With Ghosts.

And If A Diversion Is Needed, Why Not Arrest A General? Arthur Dillon Is A Friend Of Eminent Deputies, A Contender For The Post Of Commander-in-chief Of The Northern Front; He Has Proved Himself At Valmy And In A Halfdozen Actions Since. In The National Assembly He Was A Liberal; Now He Is A Republican. Isn't It Then Logical That He Should Be Thrown Into Gaol, July 1, On Suspicion Of Passing Military Secrets To The Enemy?

To Me, Hillary [clinton] Looks Alright. She Looks Like The Kind Of Woman I Admire. She Doesn't Seem To Have Distorted Her Essential Nature.

I Think It Is Going To Take Another Fifty Years For The Report To Be In. If I Were To Give A Preliminary Report, I Would Say That [margaret Thatcher] Wrecked This Country.

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.

Imagination Only Comes When You Privilege The Subconscious, When You Make Delay And Procrastination Work For You.

Procrastination

He Turns To The Painting. "i Fear Mark Was Right." "who Is Mark?" "a Silly Little Boy Who Runs After George Boleyn. I Once Heard Him Say I Looked Like A Murderer." Gregory Says, "did You Not Know?

When People Begin To Talk About "our Island Story" My Hackles Rise. It Is Deluded And Conservative.

God Takes Out Your Heart Of Flesh, And Gives You A Heart Of Stone.

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