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Meaning
The speaker compares writing fiction to historical work. Both involve choosing, leaving things out, and arranging details, but fiction also requires inventing what characters think. The line emphasizes how novelists shape reality while historians aim to report it.
When It Was Said
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Who It Was Said To
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Historical Context
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Source
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Original Language & Translation
Originally said in English.
Did They Really Say It?
No source found on Wikiquote; the quote is attributed to Hilary Mantel.
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About Hilary Mantel
British writer
Dame Hilary Mary Mantel was a British writer best known for historical fiction, as well as memoir and short stories. Her work ranged across several forms, and she published from the mid-1980s onward. Her first novel, Every Day Is Mother's Day, appeared in 1985. Over her career she wrote 12 novels, two short story collections, a memoir, and many articles and opinion pieces.
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Books by Hilary Mantel
Bring Up the Bodies
2013
Wolf Hall
2015
The Mirror and the Light
2020
The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher
2014
An Experiment in Love
2007