Quotes from book
Wolf Hall

Wolf Hall
Hilary Mantel

Wolf Hall is a historical novel by English author Hilary Mantel, published by Fourth Estate, named after the Seymour family seat of Wolfhall or Wulfhall in Wiltshire. Set in the period from 1500 to 1535, Wolf Hall is a sympathetic fictionalised biography documenting the rapid rise to power of Thomas Cromwell in the court of Henry VIII through to the death of Sir Thomas More. The novel won both the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 2012, The Observer named it as one of "The 10 best historical novels".The book is the first in a trilogy; the sequel Bring Up the Bodies was published in 2012. The last book in the trilogy will be called The Mirror and the Light and is expected to cover the last four years of Cromwell's life.

“He thinks, I remembered you, Thomas More, but you didn't remember me. You never even saw me coming.”

Hilary Mantel book Wolf Hall

Source: Wolf Hall

“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.”

Hilary Mantel book Wolf Hall

Source: Wolf Hall

“It is the absence of facts that frightens people: the gap you open, into which they pour their fears, fantasies, desires.”

Hilary Mantel book Wolf Hall

Source: Wolf Hall

“Fortitude…. It means fixity of purpose. It means endurance. It means having the strength to live with what constrains you.”

Hilary Mantel book Wolf Hall

Source: Wolf Hall

“Some of these things are true and some of them lies. But they are all good stories.”

Hilary Mantel book Wolf Hall

Source: Wolf Hall

“For what's the point of breeding children, if each generation does not improve on what went before.”

Hilary Mantel book Wolf Hall

Source: Wolf Hall

“It is almost a joke, but a joke that nobody tells.”

Hilary Mantel book Wolf Hall

Source: Wolf Hall

“When you are writing laws you are testing words to find their utmost power. Like spells, they have to make things happen in the real world, and like spells, they only work if people believe in them.”

Hilary Mantel book Wolf Hall

Source: Wolf Hall

“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 book Wolf Hall

Source: Wolf Hall

“You learn nothing about men by snubbing them and crushing their pride. You must ask them what it is they can do in this world, that they alone can do.”

Hilary Mantel book Wolf Hall

Source: Wolf Hall

“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.”

Hilary Mantel book Wolf Hall

Source: Wolf Hall

“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 book Wolf Hall

Source: Wolf Hall

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