Writer Quotes by Peter Ackroyd

8 Writer quotes by Peter Ackroyd

Peter Ackroyd’s eight reflections on writing blend historical curiosity with literary craft. They give a brief but rich sense of how he sees the writer as both chronicler and creator, ideal for a short, insightful read.

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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

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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

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

Peter Ackroyd

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“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

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“It is characteristic of Dickens who, when he grasps the wrong end of the stick, never fails to belabour everyone in sight…

Peter Ackroyd

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And the smell of the library was always the same - the musty odour of old clothes mixed with the keener scent…

Peter Ackroyd

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“Books do not perish like humankind. Of course we commonly see them broken in the haberdasher's shop when only a few months…

Peter Ackroyd

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

Peter Ackroyd

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More by Peter Ackroyd

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

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I believe that the gods themselves are frightened of the world which they have fashioned.

Peter Ackroyd

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“A woman is a deep Ditch, said he, her House inclines to Death and her Paths unto the Devil”

Peter Ackroyd

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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

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

Peter Ackroyd

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“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

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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

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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

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“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

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“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

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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

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“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

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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

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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

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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

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