Status Updates From Der Hilfsprediger

"My palm," the girl said... She held it out under the candle. "Once is enough," Fludd said.
"No, tell me again. I didn't listen properly the first time. I want to know my destiny."
"I can't tell you that."
"I thought it was written in my lines. I thought you believed in it."
"Patterns can alter," Fludd said. "A soul is a thing in a state of flux. Your fate is mutable. Your will is free."

"...But first, tell me, how long is it since your last confession?"
"Not long," the penitent said flatly. ...And what she said might be true, in the Netherhoughtonian perception. Up there, they were still gossiping about the Abdication; not that of Edward VIII, but that of James II. Their quarrels stretched back to time immemorial; they had grievances that pre-dated the Conquest.

'"Young things," Sister Anthony said. "Nuns today. Want coddling. Finicky."
"Do you want coddling, Father Fludd?" Purpit asked: gaily, without malice.
He glanced at her. Her gaiety was a terrible thing to see.'

"We saw an ambulance, Father," they said. "Touch my shoulder, touch my knee, Pray to God it won't be me. Then we have to hang on to us collars till we see a white dog."
But you haven't got collars," Fludd said.
"Where they would be, if we had," the children explained; and one small girl said, "We have to make do."

'You could not say that in Fetherhoughton there was a bush telegraph, for in that place, scoured as it was by Siberian winds, you could not find a bush.'

'They did not think it was cruel to mock the afflicted, they thought it was perfectly natural; they were sentimental but pitiless, very scathing, and unforgiving about any aberration, deviation, eccentricity, or piece of originality. There was a spirit abroad in the village that discriminated so thoroughly against pretention that it also discriminated against ambition, even against literacy.'

There’s something slightly rabid about Hilary Mantel – a kind of vicious relish to her writing. Not sure what it says about me that I like that.

Confusing

Honestly loving but have no idea what the premise is. It’s fun to listen to and there’s lots of quirky priests and nuns