The experienced writer says to the anguished novice: 'Just do it; get something, anything, on to the screen or page, just establish a flow of words, and criticise them later.' You give this advice but can't always take it.
Hilary MantelRead
Sometimes you buy a book, powerfully drawn to it, but then it just sits on the shelf. Maybe you flick through it, the ghost of your original purpose at your elbow, but it's not so much rereading as re-dusting. Then one day you pick it up, take notice of the contents; your inner life realigns.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote illustrates how our relationship with books can evolve over time, reflecting changes in our inner selves and priorities.
Hilary Mantel's quote captures the complex relationship we often have with books. It suggests that sometimes we feel an initial strong attraction to a book, only to let it gather dust on a shelf as life carries us along. However, there comes a moment when we revisit that book, and through its pages, we find a realignment of our thoughts and emotions, as if the book has the power to connect with our evolving inner life.
Themes
BooksReadingInner LifeSelf-DiscoveryPurpose
In practice
Example use cases
During a book club discussion, one might use this quote to emphasize the deeper connections that can arise from revisiting literature.
More from Hilary Mantel
All quotes →History is always changing behind us, and the past changes a little every time we retell it.
Hilary MantelRead
Why are we so attached to the severities of the past? Why are we so proud of having endured our fathers and our mothers, the fireless days and the meatless days, the cold winters and the sharp tongues? It's not as if we had a choice.
Hilary MantelRead
He is careful to deny responsibility for September, but he does not, you notice, condemn the killings. He also refrains from killing words, sparing Roland and Buzot, as if they were beneath his notice. August 10 was illegal, he says; so too was the taking of the Bastille. What account can we take of that, in revolution? It is the nature of revolutions to break laws. We are not justices of the peace; we are legislators to a new world.
Hilary MantelRead
It is the absence of facts that frightens people: the gap you open, into which they pour their fears, fantasies, desires.
Hilary MantelRead
History offers us vicarious experience. It allows the youngest student to possess the ground equally with his elders; without a knowledge of history to give him a context for present events, he is at the mercy of every social misdiagnosis handed to him.
Hilary MantelRead
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