Hilary Mantel : (7)

" You can control and censor a child’s reading, but you can’t control her interpretations; no one can guess how a message that to adults seems banal or ridiculous or outmoded will alter itself and evolve inside the darkness of a child’s heart. " - Hilary Mantel

" ‘Show up at the desk’ is one of the first rules of writing, but for ‘Wolf Hall’ I was about 30 years late. " - Hilary Mantel

" I’ve got so many ideas, and sometimes the more exhausted my body gets, the more active my mind gets. " - Hilary Mantel

" There are plenty of books that tell you how to become a writer, but not one that suggests how, if you want a normal life, you might reverse the process. " - Hilary Mantel

" I think it took me half a page of ‘Wolf Hall’ to think: ‘This is the novel I should have been writing all along.’ " - Hilary Mantel

" 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. " - Hilary Mantel

" Write a book you’d like to read. If you wouldn’t read it, why would anybody else? Don’t write for a perceived audience or market. It may well have vanished by the time your book’s ready. " - Hilary Mantel