Hilary Mantel, Bring Up The Bodies Quotes
The things you think are the disasters in your life are not the disasters really. Almost anything can be turned around: out of every ditch, a path, if you can only see it.
You know I'm not a man with whom you can have inconsequential conversations. I cannot split myself into two, one your friend and the other the king's servant.
...this is what death does to you, it takes and takes, so that all that is left of your memories is a faint tracing of spilled ash.
He says in his defence he never meddled with married women, only with virgins.
When a man admits guilt we have to believe him. We cannot set ourselves to proving to him that he is wrong. Otherwise the law courts would never function.
How many men can say, as I must, 'I am a man whose only friend is the King of England'? I have everything, you would think. And yet take Henry away, and I have nothing.
If Mary's blood is Spanish, at least it is royal. And at least she can walk straight and has control of her bowels.
Full bellies breed gentle manners. The pinch of famine makes monsters.