It sometimes seems to me that the whole course of English history was one of accident, confusion, chance and unintended consequences -… — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share Image
“None of it seemed very real, but I suppose that's the trouble with history. It's the one thing we have to make… — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share Image
I wanted to be a poet when I was 20; I had no interest in fiction or biography and precious little interest… — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share Image
I can remember picking up weighty tomes on the history of science and the history of philosophy and reading those when I… — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share Image
The ordinary routines of life are never chronicled by the historian, but they make up almost the whole of experience. — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share Image
It may seem unfashionable to say so, but historians should seize the imagination as well as the intellect. History is, in a… — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share Image
The 16th-century theatre witnessed the particularly English manifestation of 'the history play.' There can be no doubt that Shakespeare's presentations of 'Henry… — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share Image
Why should a novelist not also be a historian? To force unnatural divisions within the English language is to work against its… — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share Image
London' is a gallery of sensation of impressions. It is a history of London in a thematic rather than a chronological sense… — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share Image
“There is a camaraderie that grows up among those who work with old books and old papers, largely, I suspect, because we… — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share Image
“Is Dust immortal then, I ask'd him, so that we may see it blowing through the Centuries? But as Walter gave no… — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share Image
“For when I trace back the years I have liv'd, gathering them up in my Memory, I see what a chequer'd Work… — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share Image
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… — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share
I believe that the gods themselves are frightened of the world which they have fashioned. — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share
“A woman is a deep Ditch, said he, her House inclines to Death and her Paths unto the Devil” — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share
I don't know if I have a voice of my own. I don't see me being an important person with something to say. I… — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share
The ordinary routines of life are never chronicled by the historian, but they make up almost the whole of experience. — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share
“I believe now that there can be no real sense of loss or seperation without the recognition of death; we were too young to… — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share
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… — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share
Rioting has always been a London tradition. It has been since the early Middle Ages. There's hardly a spate of years that goes by… — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share
“absinthe removes the bitter taste of failure and grants me strange visions which are charming principally because they cannot be written down. Only in… — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share
“Those in their snug Bed-chambers may call the Fears of Night meer Bugbears, but their Minds have not pierced into the Horror of the… — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share
In so far as I have any beliefs, I suppose I'm like that old Peggy Lee song, 'Is That All There Is?' I want… — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share
“dyer. (Looking at him scornfully) So that is why Wits swarm like Egypt's Frogs. If I were a Writer now, I would wish to… — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share
The embrace of present and past time, in which English antiquarianism becomes a form of alchemy, engenders a strange timelessness. It is as if… — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share
In London, I've always lived within 10 miles of where I was born. You see, there is something called a spirit of place, and… — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share
There is no humiliation worse than the consciousness of a wasted life. It stains the spirit, forestalls hope, and destroys any motive for action… — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share
