A Memoir of My Former Self Quotes

“How nice, then, to go to Waterstones and not to have to disinfect yourself when you get home; yet sometimes as a reader I feel nostalgic for disorder, for the random and unpredictable. I find myself wanting to be free from categorization, or to introduce another kind; I wish bookshops had a shelf called Really Interesting Books. We all know what a RIB is, I think. It's a book that is about more than you imagined when first you picked it up. RIBs are like treasure maps—the marks on the paper are only symbolic indications of the riches to be recovered. They tell you things you always somehow knew, but had never been able to articulate. A RIB is like going on your travels, but also somehow like arriving home.”
― Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self: A Life in Writing

“I wish bookshops had a shelf called Really Interesting Books. We all know what a RIB is, I think. It’s a book that is about more than you imagined when first you picked it up. RIBs are like treasure maps — the marks on the paper are only symbolic indications of the riches to be recovered. They tell you things you always somehow knew, but had never been able to articulate.”
― Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self: A Life in Writing

“will suit someone; I’m happy to meet her, after her Asbo”
― Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self

“constellated around Madame du Barry, official mistress”
― Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self

“Evidence is always partial. Facts are not the truth, though they are part of it - information is not knowledge. And history is not the past - it is the method we have evolved of organising our ignorance of the past. It is the record of what is left of the record. It's the plan of positions when we stop the dance to note them down.”
― Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self: A Life in Writing

“... which I came across on the internet, which is the same as saying 'I read it in the Beano.' (pp15)”
― Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self: A Life in Writing

“Mourning is work. It is not simply being sad. It is naming your pain. It is witnessing the sorrow of others, drawing out the shape of loss. It is natural and necessary and there is no healing without it.”
― Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self: A Life in Writing