[Margaret Thatcher] admitted to being the daughter of her father but not the daughter of her mother!
Hilary MantelFor 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.
Hilary MantelIt is all very well planning what you will do in six months, what you will do in a year, but itโs no good at all if you donโt have a plan for tomorrow.
Hilary MantelWrite 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 MantelThe 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.
Hilary Mantel