Quotes by Peter Ackroyd

“rather like a car coming towards you. I knew I had to do it sometime. And it seemed like a natural progression from the other people Id done.”

“[Well, well tackle that a bit later. Back to biography:] The only way of writing any kind of study, say the Thomas More one, is to so fully enter his sensibility that you become a part of it, and he becomes a part of you, ... In that process you begin to see the heart of his design. It would be foolish and unproductive to see it as a totally alien system of belief. Far better to enter it in a spirit of communion.”

“Thats tittle-tattle. It was completely overblown. Im surprised at you. Next itll be I hear you drink a lot. Thats the normal one. He drinks too much, hes hardly ever sober. Well if I was hardly ever sober, how would I have written 30 fucking books?”

“This book wrote itself, somehow,”

“And I think thats the spirit of Shakespeare, which somehow touched it . . . I dont know what that process is or means, but it certainly takes place.”

“It leads to the conclusion that he did not necessarily persevere in his study.”

“Shakespeare: The Biography,”

“I had to paraphrase the paraphrase.”

“A triptych in which the presiding deities are Mother, England and Me.”

Is Dust immortal then, I askd him, so that we may see it blowing through the Centuries? But as Walter gave no Answer I jested with him further to break his Melancholy humour: What is Dust, Master Pyne?And he reflected a little: It is particles of Matter, no doubt.Then we are all Dust indeed, are we not?And in a feigned Voice he murmered, For Dust thou art and shalt to Dust return. Then he made a Sour face, but only yo laugh the more.

He is a Londoner, too, in his writings. In his familiar letters he displays a rambling urban vivacity, a tendency to to veer off the point and to muddle his syntax. He had a brilliantly eclectic mind, picking up words and images while at the same time forging them in new and unexpected combinations. He conceived several ideas all at once, and sometimes forgot to separate them into their component parts. This was true of his lectures, too, in which brilliant perceptions were scattered in a wilderness of words. As he wrote on another occasion, The lake babbled not less, and the wind murmured not, nor the little fishes leaped for joy that their tormentor was not. This strangely contorted and convoluted style also characterizes his verses, most of which were appended as commentaries upon his paintings. Like Blake, whose prophetic books bring words and images in exalted combination, Turner wished to make a complete statement. Like Blake, he seemed to consider the poets role as being in part prophetic. His was a voice calling in the wilderness, and, perhaps secretly, he had an elevated sense of his status and his vocation. And like Blake, too, he was often considered to be mad. He lacked, however, the poetic genius of Blake - compensated perhaps by the fact that by general agreement he is the greater artist.

I have livd long enough for others, like the Dog in the Wheel, and it is now the Season to begin for myself: I cannot change that Thing calld Time, but I can alter its Posture and, as Boys do turn a looking-glass against the Sunne, so I will dazzle you all.

For when I trace back the years I have livd, gathering them up in my Memory, I see what a chequerd Work Of Nature my life has been. If I were now to inscribe my own History with its unparalleled Sufferings and surprizing Adventures (as the Booksellers might indite it), I know that the great Part of the World would not believe the Passages there related, by reason of the Strangeness of them, but I cannot help their Unbelief; and if the Reader considers them to be but dark Conceits, then let him bethink himself that Humane life is quite out of the Light and that we are all Creatures of Darknesse.

And when I was young, did I ever tell you, I always wanted to get insidea book and never come out again? I loved reading so much I wantedto be a part of it, and there were some books I could have stayed infor ever.

There were pools of light among the stacks, directly beneath the bulbs which Philip had switched on, but it was now with an unexpected fearfulness that he saw how the books stretched away into the darkness. They seemed to expand as soon as they reached the shadows, creating some dark world where there was no beginning and no end, no story, no meaning. And if you crossed the threshold into that world, you would be surrounded by words; you would crush them beneath your feet, you would knock against them with your head and arms, but if you tried to grasp them they would melt away. Philip did not dare turn his back upon these books. Not yet. It was almost, he thought, as if they had been speaking to each other while he slept.

So we may use our books to form a barricade against the world,interweaving their words with our own to ward off the heat of the day.

Books do not per­ish like hu­mankind. Of course we com­mon­ly see them bro­ken in the hab­er­dash­ers shop when on­ly a few months be­fore they lay bound on the sta­tion­ers stall; these are not true works, but mere trash and new­fan­gle­ness for the vul­gar. There are thou­sands of such gew­gaws and toys which peo­ple have in their cham­bers, or which they keep up­on their shelves, be­liev­ing that they are pre­cious things, when they are the mere pass­ing fol­lies of the pass­ing time and of no more val­ue than pa­pers gath­ered up from some dunghill or raked by chance out of the ken­nel. True books are filled with the pow­er of the un­der­stand­ing which is the in­her­itance of the ages: you may take up a book in time, but you read it in eter­ni­ty.

So do we discover, in the world, that our worst fears are unfulfilled; yet we must fear, in order that we may feel delight.

the great advantage of really contemporary fiction is that one finds oneself mirror on every page

the great advantage of really contemporary fiction is that one finds oneself mirrored on every page