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Hilary Mantel

Hilary Mantel Quotes

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Famous Hilary Mantel Quotes

“We have a number of very powerful women in the world now - Mrs. [Angela] Merkel, who the Germans call Mutti. What did we call Mrs. [Margaret] Thatcher? When she was minister of education, she stopped the children's free school milk. This may sound quaint, but after the war we were such a malnourished nation that part of the founding of the welfare state were public health initiatives. Every little schoolchild got milk. Mrs. Thatcher stopped it. They called her "Maggie Thatcher, milk snatcher."”

WorldMayChildrenLittlesWarStatesSchoolNationsSoundPowerfulNumbersMinistersWelfareMilkInitiativeFoundingVery PowerfulPublic HealthPowerful WomenWelfare StateAngelaQuaintMaggieMrs Thatcher
Author:Hilary Mantel
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“The weight of the old world is stifling, and trying to shovel its weight off your life is tiring just to think about. The constant shuttling of opinions is tiring, and the shuffling of papers across desks, the chopping of logic and the trimming of attitudes. There must, somewhere, be a simpler, more violent world.”

ThinkingWorldTryingLife IsAttitudeOpinionPaperLogicWeightConstantViolentDesksPapersTireOld WorldShovelsStiflingChoppingShufflingTrimming
Book:Three-Book Edition: A Place of Greater Safety; Beyond Black; The Giant O’Brien
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“The fate of peoples is made like this, two men in small rooms. Forget the coronations, the conclaves of cardinals, the pomp and processions. This is how the world changes: a counter pushed across a table, a pen stroke that alters the force of a phrase, a woman's sigh as she passes and leaves on the air a trail of orange flower or rose water; her hand pulling close the bed curtain, the discreet sigh of flesh against flesh.”

MenWorldMadeTwoHandsForceWaterForgetRoomsFateAirFlowerBedTablesRoseFleshPhrasesPensPullingStrokesOrangeSighCurtainsTrailsCardinalsProcessionDiscreetCoronationSmall Rooms
Author:Hilary Mantel
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“He is careful to deny responsibility for September, but he does not, you notice, condemn the killings. He also refrains from killing words, sparing Roland and Buzot, as if they were beneath his notice. August 10 was illegal, he says; so too was the taking of the Bastille. What account can we take of that, in revolution? It is the nature of revolutions to break laws. We are not justices of the peace; we are legislators to a new world.”

IfsWorldDoeLawJusticeResponsibilityBreakRevolutionAccountsKillingCarefulDenyIllegalNew WorldSeptemberAugustRefrainLegislatorsBastille
Author:Hilary Mantel
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