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But the law is not an instrument to find out truth. It is there to create a fiction that will help us move past atrocious acts and face our future. It seems there is no mercy in this world, but a kind of haphazard justice: men pay for crimes, but not necessarily their own.

— Hilary Mantel The Mirror & the Light (2020)

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More quotes by Hilary Mantel

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.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Hilary Mantel (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.