Peter Ackroyd Professions : Biographer Born : October 5, 1949 Browse All Authors Top 79 quotes by Peter Ackroyd London goes beyond any boundary or convention.It contains every wish or word ever spoken, every action or gesture ever made, every harsh or noble statement ever expressed. It is illimitable. It is Infinite London. Peter Ackroyd gestures noble wish 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 earn as much money as I can. It's a defense. I don't enjoy it or do anything with it. Peter Ackroyd defense trying people And when I was young, did I ever tell you, I always wanted to get inside a book and never come out again? I loved reading so much I wanted to be a part of it, and there were some books I could have stayed in for ever. Peter Ackroyd reading young book There is no humiliation worse than the consciousness of a wasted life. It stains the spirit, forestalls hope, and destroys any motive for action or change. Peter Ackroyd consciousness spirit action There is a word in Old English which belongs wholly to that civilization - "dustsceawung," meaning contemplation of dust. It is a true image of the Anglo-Saxon mind, or at least an echo of that consciousness which considered transcience and loss to be part of the human estate; it was a world in which life was uncertain and the principal diety was fate or destiny or "wyrd." Peter Ackroyd fate destiny loss 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 the history of smells, the history of silence, and the history of light. I have described the book as a labyrinth, and in that sense in complements my description of London itself. Peter Ackroyd smell light book I don't believe necessarily the past is in the past. It's eternal, it's all around us. Peter Ackroyd dont-believe believe past 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 certain people to whom or through whom the territory - the place, the past - speaks. Peter Ackroyd believe people past Yes, I have inherited the past because I have acknowledged it at last? And, now that I have come to understand it, I no longer need to look back. Peter Ackroyd looks past needs 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, at least to me, that my first work should be about a historical figure. Peter Ackroyd guy play writing What captivity has been to the Jews, exile has been to the Irish. For us, the romance of our native land begins only after we have left home; it is really only with other people that we become Irishmen. Peter Ackroyd land home people 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 believe there's something else going on, but what that something else is I don't pretend to know. Peter Ackroyd want song believe I believe that the gods themselves are frightened of the world which they have fashioned. Peter Ackroyd i-believe believe world 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 little bird which flew through the Anglo-Saxon banqueting hall, in Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, gained the outer air and became the lark ascending in Vaughan Williams's orchestral setting. The unbroken chain is that of English music itself. Peter Ackroyd air bird past 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, a narrative of adventure and of vision, of character and of incident. It is also a portrait of the great general drama of the human spirit. Peter Ackroyd adventure character drama And the smell of the library was always the same - the musty odour of old clothes mixed with the keener scent of unwashed bodies, creating what the chief librarian had once described as 'the steam of the social soup.' Peter Ackroyd smell creating clothes Every book for me is a chapter in the long book which will finally be closed on the day of my death. Peter Ackroyd chapters long book I strike up conversations all the time and it is very interesting, finding out about things I know nothing about. Peter Ackroyd strikes conversation interesting I saw a ghost once, about 20 years ago. It took the form of someone coming out of a sleeping body and sitting at the foot of the bed. Peter Ackroyd feet sleep years 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 would feel like a charlatan and a fraud. Peter Ackroyd wasting-my-time example thinking Similar Authors Asahel Nettleton biographer Anne Sebba biographer Bodhidharma biographer Iris Origo biographer Donald Spoto biographer Derek Wilson biographer All Authors
