I don't believe necessarily the past is in the past. It's eternal, it's all around us. — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share Image
Yes, I have inherited the past because I have acknowledged it at last? And, now that I have come to understand it,… — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share Image
“I was at peace with a world which afforded so much bounty, and began to enjoy living at the very end of… — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share Image
“I would have no need for the Memory Of Things past if those which were Present were more agreeable” — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share Image
I strike up conversations all the time and it is very interesting, finding out about things I know nothing about. — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share Image
The English can laugh and at the same time strike you down, without the least compunction. It is the secret of their… — 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… — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share Image
The English have always been greedy for news of times past, with that mixture of fatalism and melancholy which is part of… — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share Image
“You say that it is time to shake off the Mist, but Mankind walks in a Mist; that Reason which you cry… — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share Image
None of my books has been ever in my head; after they're finished, they go. It's like being a sort of medium;… — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share Image
In 'The Plato Papers' I wanted to get another perspective on the present moment by extrapolating into the distant future. So in… — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share Image
You don't have to be brought up in a grand house to have a sense of the past, and I truly believe… — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share Image
“I realized that my time in this place had come to an end; now that my schooldays were over, I no longer… — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share Image
“Truly Time is a vast Denful of Horrour, round about which a Serpent winds and in the winding bites itself by the… — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share Image
“I believe now that there can be no real sense of loss or seperation without the recognition of death; we were too… — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share Image
Murderers will try to recall the sequence of events, they will remember exactly what they did just before and just after. But… — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share Image
“Hawksmoor had often noticed how, in the moments when he first carne upon a corpse, all the objects around it wavered for… — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share Image
The embrace of present and past time, in which English antiquarianism becomes a form of alchemy, engenders a strange timelessness. It is… — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share Image
“His body had become a companion which seemed always about to leave him: it had its own pains which moved him to… — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share Image
“The music of a popular song now came from the radio as Hawksmoor gazed out of the window; and he saw a… — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share Image
“Then he took the pages, smoothed them with the palm of his hand, and fixed them with pins to the walls. So… — 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
“Generally he knew by instinct the likely length of an investigation, but on this occasion he did not: as he fought to… — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share Image
“On his thirteenth birthday he had seen a film in which the central character was a painter who, unable to sell his… — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share Image
“It is one of the greatest Curses visited upon Mankind, he told me, that they shall fear where no Fear is: this… — Peter Ackroyd Copy Share Image
“Time. In another time. Either before or after. They were not stars, but fires. They were the souls of birds. They were… — 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
