Hilary Mantel Art Quotations

The novelist has a responsibility to adhere to the facts as closely as possible, and if they are inconvenient, that's where the art comes in. You must work with intractable facts and find the dramatic shape inside them.

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.

I would have been a disaster as a career politician. I would never have toed a party line.

God takes out your heart of flesh, and gives you a heart of stone.

[T]he heart is like any other organ, you can weigh it on a scale.

[H]ope takes you by the throat like a stranger, it makes your heart leap...

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.