Цитаты из книги «Внесите тела», страница 5

You may find a bride in the forest, old Seymour had said. When he closes his eyes she slides behind them, veiled in cobwebs and splashed with dew. Her feet are bare, entwined in roots, her feather hair flies into the branches; her finger, beckoning, is a curled leaf. She points to him, as sleep overtakes him.

Какова граница между правдой и ложью? Она проницаема и размыта, поскольку густо обросла слухами, домыслами, искажениями намеренными и нечаянными. Истина может ломиться в ворота и вопить на улицах, но если она не услаждает наши зрения и слух, ее удел – хныкать у черного входа.

Разумеется, это книга не об Анне Болейн и не о Генрихе VIII, но о карьере Томаса Кромвеля, чья полная научная биография до сих пор не написана. Тем временем господин секретарь остается лоснящимся, мясистым и глубоко упрятанным, как самая аппетитная слива в рождественском пироге, однако я продолжу мои усилия вытащить его на свет.

When a man admits guilt we have to believe him. We cannot set ourselves to proving to him that he is wrong. Otherwise the law courts would never function.

"Why am I here? You know I'm on your side, don't you?"

"I only asked you to supper."

"You asked Mark Smeaton to supper. And look where he is now."

Truth can break the gates down, truth can howl in the street; unless truth is pleasing, personable and easy to like, she is condemned to stay whimpering at the back door.

If someone said to Lady Rochford, "It is raining", she would turn it into a conspiracy; as she passed the news on, she would make it sound somehow indecent, unlikely, but sadly true.

He (Cromwell) once thought it himself, that he might die of grief: for his wife, his daughters, his sisters, his father and master the cardinal. But the pulse, obdurate, keeps its rhythm. You think you cannot keep breathing, but your ribcage has other ideas, rising and falling, emitting sighs. You must thrive in spite of yourself; and so that you may do it, God takes out your heart of flesh, and gives you a heart of stone.

The cardinal used to say, Cromwell will do in a week what will take another man a year, it is not worth your while to block him or oppose him. If you reach out to grip him he will not be there, he will have ridden twenty miles while you are pulling your boots on.

She (Anne Boleyn) knows adultery is a sin and treason a crime, but to be on the losing side is a greater fault than these.