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
The weight of the old world is stifling, and trying to shovel its weight off your life is tiring just to think about. The constant shuttling of opinions is tiring, and the shuffling of papers across desks, the chopping of logic and the trimming of attitudes. There must, somewhere, be a simpler, more violent world.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The complexities of modern life can feel overwhelming and burdensome.
This quote by Hilary Mantel reflects on the frustrations of contemporary existence, revealing how the weight of societal expectations and the constant churn of opinions can suffocate one's spirit. It suggests a yearning for a more straightforward existence, implying that the relentless nature of life can be draining and calls for a desire to escape to a more primal, uncomplicated reality.
Themes
OverwhelmingComplexitySocietyBurdenOpinionsEscape
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about managing stress, you can use this quote to highlight the burdens of modern life.
More from Hilary Mantel
All quotes →History is always changing behind us, and the past changes a little every time we retell it.
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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.
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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.
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It is the absence of facts that frightens people: the gap you open, into which they pour their fears, fantasies, desires.
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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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