# Quote — Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall

> When you are writing laws you are testing words to find their utmost power. Like spells, they have to make things happen in the real world, and like spells, they only work if people believe in them. If your law exacts a penalty, you must be able to enforce it—on the rich as well as the poor, the people on the Scottish borders and the Welsh marches, the men of Cornwall as well as the men of Sussex and Kent.

- Author: [Hilary Mantel](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hilary-mantel.md)
- Book: [Wolf Hall](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hilary-mantel/wolf-hall.md)
- Page: 533
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Hilary_Mantel#Wolf_Hall_(2009)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/hilary-mantel/wolf-hall/when-you-are

## More from this book

> One tradesman the same as the next? Not in the real world. Any man with a steady hand and a cleaver can call himself a butcher: but without the smith, where does he get that cleaver? Without the man who works in metal, where are your hammers, your scythes, your sickles, scissors and planes? Your arms and armor, your arrowheads, your pikes and your guns? Where are your ships at sea and their anchors? Where are your grappling hooks, your nails, latches, hinges, pokers and tongs? Where are your spits, kettles, trivets, your harness rings, buckles and bits? Where are your knives?

p. 306 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hilary-mantel/wolf-hall/one-tradesman-the.md)

> What was England, before Wolsey? A little offshore island, poor and cold.

p. 240 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hilary-mantel/wolf-hall/what-was-england.md)

> The cardinal used to say, the English will forgive a king anything, until he tries to tax them.

p. 332 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hilary-mantel/wolf-hall/the-cardinal-used.md)