” I spend a great deal of time on research, on finding all the available accounts of a scene or incident, finding out all the background details and the biographies of the people involved there, and I try to run up all the accounts side by side to see where the contradictions are, and to look where things have gone missing. “
” I’m one of these children who grew up at the knee of my grandmother and her elder sister, listening to very old people talk about their memories. “
” Much historical fiction that centers on real people has always been deficient in information, lacking in craft and empty in affect. “
” Like a historian, I interpret, select, discard, shape, simplify. Unlike a historian, I make up people’s thoughts. “
” Sometimes people ask, ‘Does writing make you happy?’ But I think that’s beside the point. It makes you agitated, and continually in a state where you’re off balance. You seldom feel serene or settled. “
All 5 Hilary Mantel Quotes about People in picture
Topics: People quotes