Peter Ackroyd Quotes

67 quotes in 1088 categories

• 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 my…
• 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 to…
• It may seem unfashionable to say so, but historians should seize the imagination as well as the intellect. History is, in a sense, a story,…
• It sometimes seems to me that the whole course of English history was one of accident, confusion, chance and unintended consequences - there's no real…
• 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…
• London' is a gallery of sensation of impressions. It is a history of London in a thematic rather than a chronological sense with chapters of…
• My great fear has always been complete and utter failure. Hence, you see, all the dispossessed people in my fiction, and why I try to…
• 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…
• Oh, I just tend to believe in things when I'm writing them. For instance, when I was writing 'Doctor Dee,' I believed in magic. And…
• 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 without…
• The 16th-century theatre witnessed the particularly English manifestation of 'the history play.' There can be no doubt that Shakespeare's presentations of 'Henry V' and 'Richard…
• There are so many characters whizzing around inside my head, it's like Looney Tunes. But as soon as I've finished writing about them, I completely…
• There are two types of people, you see. One type keep their heads straight, and look around as they walk. The others look up -…
• Thomas More's birth was noted by his father upon a blank page at the back of a copy of Geoffrey of Monmouth's 'Historia Regum Britanniae';…
• To be a writer was always my greatest aim. I remember writing a play about Guy Fawkes when I was 10. I suppose it's significant,…
• 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…
• You don't have to be brought up in a grand house to have a sense of the past, and I truly believe that there are…
• The embrace of present and past time, in which English antiquarianism becomes a form of alchemy, engenders a strange timelessness. It is as if the…
• 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…
• The endless chatter of this journey had wearied me.

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