Hilary Mantel Quotes

A lot of my past is gone from my mind.

People ask me if I am going to write my memoirs. But even if I wanted to, I would not be able. I have extremely few memories.

When you begin to think about the past, you realize how much of it is lost to us.

I think that when you remember, remember, remember everything like that, you could go on until you remember what was there before you were in the world.

And what did I think when I was small and why did I forget? And what else will I forget when I grow older? And if you forget is it as if it never happened? Will none of the things you saw or thought or dreamed matter?

Shall memory restore The steps and the shore, The face and the meeting place.

How that name comes up. Mixing memory and desire

It has never occurred to me before, but this is truly how it is: all of us on earth walk constantly over a seething, scarlet sea of flame, hidden below, in the belly of the earth. We never think of it. But what if the thin crust under our feet should turn into glass and we should suddenly see?

Memories are hunting horns whose sound dies on the wind.

Sometimes I used to think that one day i should wake up, and all that had been would be over. forgotten, sunk, drowned. Nothing was sure - not even memory.

I don't think I remember my first memory.

Most humans think the appearance of quiet is quiet. They do not see that sometimes the enemy is as quiet as the serpent. Only when it has stolen all of their eggs will they know bad walks in the quiet as well as the noisy.

I don't remember debates. I don't think we spent a lot of time debating it. Maybe we did, but I don't remember.

Actually I think I have forgotten how it was back then. Or probably not - I didn't qualify. There were only 16 cars in the race.

There were moments when she wasn't talking so much as fading into time, dropping back into some funnelled stretch of recent past.

What if I’ve forgotten the most important thing? What if somewhere inside me there is a dark limbo where all the truly important memories are heaped and slowly turning into mud?...the thought fills me with an almost unbearable sorrow.

If i were to lose my memories, I would rely on music. There is so much of my story embedded in each.

Memory is never complete. There are always parts of it that time has amputated. Writing is a way of retrieving them, of bringing the missing parts back to it, of making it more holistic.

And she never could remember; and ever since that day what Lucy means by a good story is a story which reminds her of the forgotten story in the Magician's Book.

What if I’ve forgotten the most important thing?

Keeping a journal has taught me that there is not so much new in your life as you sometimes think. When you re-read your journal you find out that your latest discovery is something you already found out five years ago. Still, it is true that one penetrates deeper and deeper into the same ideas and the same experiences.

My own father had died of Alzheimer's. George [Mitchell] had been also, I think, deeply moved by a similar tragedy.

To have some account of my thoughts, manners, acquaintance and actions, when the hour arrives in which time is more nimble than memory, is the reason which induces me to keep a journal: a journal in which I must confess my every thought, must open my whole heart!

How long did it take for a past to die?