Peter Ackroyd

“I would have no need for the Memory Of Things past if those which were Present were more agreeable”

— Peter Ackroyd

In London, I've always lived within 10 miles of where I was born. You see, there is something called a spirit of…

— Peter Ackroyd

I saw a ghost once, about 20 years ago. It took the form of someone coming out of a sleeping body and…

— Peter Ackroyd

The ordinary routines of life are never chronicled by the historian, but they make up almost the whole of experience.

— Peter Ackroyd

The English have always been greedy for news of times past, with that mixture of fatalism and melancholy which is part of…

— Peter Ackroyd

There is no humiliation worse than the consciousness of a wasted life. It stains the spirit, forestalls hope, and destroys any motive…

— Peter Ackroyd

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

— Peter Ackroyd

“A person who had no one would be well advised to cobble together some passable ghost. Breathe it into being and coax…

— Peter Ackroyd

Oh, I just tend to believe in things when I'm writing them. For instance, when I was writing 'Doctor Dee,' I believed…

— Peter Ackroyd

“I need to know when,' he said, 'In this case when is more important than how. Do you have a time-table?' For…

— Peter Ackroyd

Rioting has always been a London tradition. It has been since the early Middle Ages. There's hardly a spate of years that…

— Peter Ackroyd

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

“This mundus tenebrosus, this shaddowy world of Mankind, is sunk into Night; there is not a Field without its Spirits, nor a…

— Peter Ackroyd

In 'The Plato Papers' I wanted to get another perspective on the present moment by extrapolating into the distant future. So in…

— Peter Ackroyd

And when I was young, did I ever tell you, I always wanted to get inside a book and never come out…

— Peter Ackroyd

“dyer. (Looking at him scornfully) So that is why Wits swarm like Egypt's Frogs. If I were a Writer now, I would…

— Peter Ackroyd

“Now his work-mates pitied him, although they tried not to show it, and it was generally arranged that he was given jobs…

— Peter Ackroyd

“There are those who say further that these are meer Dreames and no true Relations, but I say back to them: look…

— Peter Ackroyd

“...but there were four things I taught Walter to consider: 1) That it was Cain who built the first City, 2) That…

— Peter Ackroyd

“There were pools of light among the stacks, directly beneath the bulbs which Philip had switched on, but it was now with…

— Peter Ackroyd

“And now we come to the Heart of our Designe: the art of Shaddowes you must know well, Walter, and you must…

— Peter Ackroyd

“None of these apparent sightings interested Hawksmoor, since it was quite usual for members of the public to come forward with such…

— Peter Ackroyd

“Generally he knew by instinct the likely length of an investigation, but on this occasion he did not: as he fought to…

— Peter Ackroyd

Why should a novelist not also be a historian? To force unnatural divisions within the English language is to work against its…

— Peter Ackroyd

To be a writer was always my greatest aim. I remember writing a play about Guy Fawkes when I was 10. I…

— Peter Ackroyd

There is a word in Old English which belongs wholly to that civilization - "dustsceawung," meaning contemplation of dust. It is a…

— Peter Ackroyd

“I asked him what he said, for there was such a mish-mash of Conversation around us that I could scarcely understand him…

— Peter Ackroyd

“Time. In another time. Either before or after. They were not stars, but fires. They were the souls of birds. They were…

— Peter Ackroyd

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…

— Peter Ackroyd

“But just as my philosophy had ceased to interest me as soon as it was formulated into a set of principles so,…

— Peter Ackroyd

“I believe now that there can be no real sense of loss or seperation without the recognition of death; we were too…

— Peter Ackroyd

Murderers will try to recall the sequence of events, they will remember exactly what they did just before and just after. But…

— Peter Ackroyd

“There is a camaraderie that grows up among those who work with old books and old papers, largely, I suspect, because we…

— Peter Ackroyd

“And we recall in Dickens' fiction how universal it is that a child looks after an adult, and how the adult remains…

— Peter Ackroyd

His head was boiled, impaled upon a pole and raised above London Bridge. So ended the life of Thomas More, one of…

— Peter Ackroyd

I have liv'd long enough for others, like the Dog in the Wheel, and it is now the Season to begin for…

— Peter Ackroyd

“DYER. No, I am not of your Mind, for the Dialogue was fitted up with too much Facility. Words must be pluckt…

— Peter Ackroyd

“I realized that my time in this place had come to an end; now that my schooldays were over, I no longer…

— Peter Ackroyd

All cities are impressive in their way, because they represent the aspiration of men to lead a common life; those people who…

— Peter Ackroyd

London' is a gallery of sensation of impressions. It is a history of London in a thematic rather than a chronological sense…

— Peter Ackroyd