Hilary Mantel Quotes

'While You Were Sleeping' was actually a special opportunity for me to grow up a lot.

I've gotten away with a lot in my life. The older you get the more you realize you're not getting away with it, it's taking its toll somewhere. So you try not to put yourself in those situations. Part of the mysterious process called growing up. Some people do that better than others.

When I became a mature woman, I put both feet firmly on the side of maturity.

I'm a grown man. You know, I've been in a lot of scrapes, but I never felt like I got so - there are probably a lot of things I should have done that I didn't do.

Character is determined more by the lack of certain experiences than by those one has had.

Life's experiences, whether they be pleasant or unpleasant, torturous or excruciatingly wonderful and blissful, you know, season you somehow and you learn from them.

I'd like to believe an accumulation of experience has made me a sort of a grown-up person, so I can have judgment and taste and whatever.

I think you grow up every year, every day. You learn something new and try to really worry about what's important in life.

Intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education.

Ten years of character development affords you a lot. You get a chance to dig deeper and deeper and deeper into a person.

As you grow older, maturity naturally comes to you. And it shows on your face. It's true not only about looks, but your maturity should also reflect in your performances.

I think all my life's story is condensed in my face. It is neither innocent nor coy. It speaks volumes.

Hargrave made me mature. It made me grow up, and I needed that.

As a person, you like to see young men mature.

Now I got kids and I'm more wise now. Life means more to me than having fun. I'm more calm, more wise, and more cautious.

Gifts are free, but maturity is expensive.

You grow up the day you have the first real laugh at yourself.

I think I'm a little more mature than the average guy.

I don't know if it's that the scripts are evolving or just that I'm getting older, but the characters become more interesting as you get older because you've lived more life at different stages. You've loved; you've lost; you have more of that journey.

Some people do need to grow up, but I don't think I'm there yet. I don't think I'm ready to do grown-up things and be a grown-up.

Most people don't grow up. It's too damn difficult. What happens is most people get older. That's the truth of it. They honor their credit cards, they find parking spaces, they marry, they have the nerve to have children, but they don't grow up.

Acting engenders and harbours qualities that are best left way behind in adolescence.

Because of the enormous responsibility, diabetic kids tend to grow up to be the most mature, most realistic people who have a natural desire to reach outside of themselves.

I think you accidentally learn things in high school that turn out to be life lessons when you are able to step back a bit and study them in more depth.

If boyhood and youth are but vanity, must it not be our ambition to become men?