39 quotes
He will remember his first sight of the open sea: a gray wrinkled vastness, like the residue of a dream.
Wolf Hall (2009)
It is a sure sign of troubled minds, the habit of quotation.
Wolf Hall (2009)
A lie is no less a lie because it is a thousand years old.
Wolf Hall (2009)
Lent saps the spirits, as of course it is designed to do.
Wolf Hall (2009)
Gambling is not a vice, if you can afford to do it.
Wolf Hall (2009)
Seven years she schemed to be queen, and God protect us from answered prayers.
Wolf Hall (2009)
Katherine finds him too intimate with his co-legate; anyone who has spent much time with Wolsey, she thinks, no longer knows what honesty is.
Wolf Hall (2009)
For what’s the point of breeding children, if each generation does not improve on what went before?
Wolf Hall (2009)
I don’t suppose she would be a bad wife, for somebody who was prepared to keep her chained to the wall.
Wolf Hall (2009)
The cardinal used to say, the English will forgive a king anything, until he tries to tax them.
Wolf Hall (2009)
Leases, writs, statutes, all are written to be read and each person reads them by the light of self-interest.
Wolf Hall (2009)
It’s not easy to speak of nonexistence, even if you’ve already commissioned your tomb.
Wolf Hall (2009)
A part of the art of ruling, I suppose, is to know when to shut your ears.
Wolf Hall (2009)
The king laughs. “Why would I trust a man with my business, if he could not manage his own?”
Wolf Hall (2009)
The moment is fleeting. But insight cannot be taken back. You cannot return to the moment you were in before.
Wolf Hall (2009)
There cannot be new things in England. There can be old things freshly presented or new things that pretend to be old.
Wolf Hall (2009)
Why do I feel I have heard this story before? She has a flock of monks and priests about her, who directed the people’s eyes heavenward while picking their pockets.
Wolf Hall (2009)
We don’t have to invite pain in, he thinks. It’s waiting for us: sooner rather than later.
Wolf Hall (2009)
The all-consuming passion of Wolsey for Wolsey was hot enough to scorch all England.
Wolf Hall (2009)
“I have never understood where the line is drawn, between sacrifice and self-slaughter.”
“Christ drew it.”
“You don’t see anything wrong with the comparison?”
Wolf Hall (2009)