” When you write, you are not either sex. But when you’re read you are definitely gendered. “
” As a writer, you owe it to yourself not to get stuck in a rut of looking at the world in a certain way. “
” It follows that if you are not a mother you are not a grandmother. Your life has become unpunctuated, whereas the lives of other women around you have these distinct phases. “
” Once you’re labeled as mentally ill, and that’s in your medical notes, then anything you say can be discounted as an artefact of your mental illness. “
” 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. “
” I’m a very organised and rational and linear thinker, and you have to stop all that to write a novel. “
” Imagination only comes when you privilege the subconscious, when you make delay and procrastination work for you. “
” 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. “
All 8 Hilary Mantel Quotes about You in picture
Topics: You quotes