Peter Ackroyd Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

• I don't in any sense think of myself as a celebrity, which of course I'm not.

  Peter Ackroyd

  Thinking, Courses

  4 Copy quote

• I never read in bed, only in my study.

  Peter Ackroyd

  Bed, Study

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• I saw a ghost once, about 20 years ago. It took the form of someone coming out of a sleeping body and sitting at the foot of the bed.

  Peter Ackroyd

  Sleep, Feet, Years

  4 Copy quote

• If I did only one thing at a time I'd think I was wasting my time. If, for example, I only wrote novels I would feel like a charlatan and a fraud.

  Peter Ackroyd

  Thinking, Example, Wasting My Time

  4 Copy quote

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

  Peter Ackroyd

  Fear, Order, Delight

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• I have liv'd 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 call'd Time, but I can alter its Posture and, as Boys do turn a looking-glass against the Sunne, so I will dazzle you all.

  Peter Ackroyd

  Dog, Boys, Glasses

  4 Copy quote

• He stood beneath the white tower, and looked up at it with that mournful expression which his face always carried in repose: for one moment he thought of climbing up its cracked and broken stone, and then from its summit screaming down at the silent city as a child might scream at a chained animal.

  Peter Ackroyd

  Children, Animal, Climbing

  4 Copy quote

• The endless chatter of this journey had wearied me.

  Peter Ackroyd

  Journey, Endless, Chatter

  9 Copy quote

• I don't find myself interesting as a person and the details I find boring, quite frankly. You could sum it up in a few words or sentences really: came from nothing. Self-educated. Luck. Energy. Curiosity. Ambition. That's it. Nothing at all can illuminate the work as far as I can tell.

  Peter Ackroyd

  Ambition, Self, Interesting

  "London calling" by John O'Mahony, www.theguardian.com. July 2, 2004.

  4 Copy quote

• Health, money. That's what people worried about in the 14th century as much as today. I find it so much more interesting than the supposed activities of kings, queens, generals.

  Peter Ackroyd

  Kings, Queens, People

  "Peter Ackroyd: 'I just want to tell a story'" by Euan Ferguson, www.theguardian.com. August 25, 2011.

  4 Copy quote

• All cities are impressive in their way, because they represent the aspiration of men to lead a common life; those people who wish to live agreeable lives, and in constant intercourse with one another, will build a city as beautiful as Paris.

  Peter Ackroyd

  Beautiful, Men, Paris

  Peter Ackroyd (2001). “The Collection”, Random House Uk Limited

  7 Copy quote

• There are certain people who seem doomed to buy certain houses. The house expects them. It waits for them.

  Peter Ackroyd

  People, House, Waiting

  4 Copy quote

• Murderers will try to recall the sequence of events, they will remember exactly what they did just before and just after. But they can never remember the actual moment of killing. This is why they will always leave a clue.

  Peter Ackroyd

  Trying, Events, Remember

  7 Copy quote

• One can forgive Shakespeare anything, except one's own bad lines.

  Peter Ackroyd

  Forgiving, Lines

  "The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde". Book by Peter Ackroyd, 1983.

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

  Peter Ackroyd

  Mother, England, Deities

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• I detest self-regard. If my work has taught me anything, it is that self-aggrandisement is completely unhistorical.

  Peter Ackroyd

  Self, Taught, Regard

  4 Copy quote

• Familial love can find an echo in our own hearts just as it did in that of Charles Dickens.

  Peter Ackroyd

  Heart, Echoes, Dickens

  4 Copy quote

• When I was a child I wanted to be Pope. My greatest disappointment is missing out on that. I also wanted to be a tap dancer but I never fulfilled that ambition either.

  Peter Ackroyd

  Disappointment, Children, Ambition

  4 Copy quote

• I have always believed that the material world is governed by nonmaterial sources, so that in that sense 'English Music' is an exercise in the spiritual as well as the material. I have always been attracted to the Gothic and spiritual imagination, and I've always been interested in visionaries.

  Peter Ackroyd

  Spiritual, Exercise, Imagination

  7 Copy quote

• I wanted to be a poet when I was 20; I had no interest in fiction or biography and precious little interest in history, but those three elements in my life have become the most important.

  Peter Ackroyd

  Important, Three, Fiction

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• In 'The Plato Papers' I wanted to get another perspective on the present moment by extrapolating into the distant future. So in that sense, there's a definite similarity of purpose between a book set in the future and a book set in the past.

  Peter Ackroyd

  Plato, Book, Past

  4 Copy quote

• It's only recently that we've discovered that the artist's inner self is somehow more important than the public world. I'm happier to create exterior pieces for the world rather than to express something I deeply feel or wish to say.

  Peter Ackroyd

  Artist, Self, Wish

  "The Big Life" by Andrew Anthony, www.theguardian.com. September 3, 2005.

  4 Copy quote

• None of my books has been ever in my head; after they're finished, they go. It's like being a sort of medium; you just grab it when it's there then just release it when it's time to go. There's a lot of instinct, not planning.

  Peter Ackroyd

  Book, Planning, Instinct

  "Peter Ackroyd: 'I just want to tell a story'" by Euan Ferguson, www.theguardian.com. August 25, 2011.

  4 Copy quote

• As a Londoner I was able to see how the world of power and money cast its shadow on those who failed.

  Peter Ackroyd

  Shadow, World, Able

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• Yet, like the sea and the gallows, London refuses nobody.

  Peter Ackroyd

  Sea, London, Gallows

  Peter Ackroyd (2003). “London: The Biography”, Anchor

  4 Copy quote

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