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 More Quotes by Peter Ackroyd More Quotes From Peter Ackroyd I never read in bed, only in my study. Peter Ackroyd bed study 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 violent rioting of one kind or another. They happen so frequently that they are almost part of London's texture. Peter Ackroyd texture age years I wanted to be a poet when I was 20; I had no interest in fiction or biography and precious little interest in history, but those three elements in my life have become the most important. Peter Ackroyd three important fiction 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 haven't. I've got nothing to say. My opinion is of no consequence or value. Peter Ackroyd opinion voice important I enjoyed reading and learning at school, and at university I enjoyed extending my reading and learning. Once I left Cambridge, I went to Yale as a fellow. I spent two years there. After that, George Gale made me literary editor of 'The Spectator. Peter Ackroyd editors reading school I have always believed that the material world is governed by nonmaterial sources, so that in that sense 'English Music' is an exercise in the spiritual as well as the material. I have always been attracted to the Gothic and spiritual imagination, and I've always been interested in visionaries. Peter Ackroyd imagination spiritual exercise In 'The Plato Papers' I wanted to get another perspective on the present moment by extrapolating into the distant future. So in that sense, there's a definite similarity of purpose between a book set in the future and a book set in the past. Peter Ackroyd plato book past 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 pattern. Peter Ackroyd english-history confusion 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 for the world rather than to express something I deeply feel or wish to say. Peter Ackroyd artist self wish 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 place happens to be London, at least once a fortnight. Peter Ackroyd born london spirit I don't in any sense think of myself as a celebrity, which of course I'm not. Peter Ackroyd courses thinking I detest self-regard. If my work has taught me anything, it is that self-aggrandisement is completely unhistorical. Peter Ackroyd regard taught self So do we discover, in the world, that our worst fears are Peter Ackroyd delight fear order 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 he thought of climbing up its cracked and broken stone, and then from its summit screaming down at the silent city as a child might scream at a chained animal. Peter Ackroyd climbing animal children It is strange, is it not, how a person can adore one's soul so much that they adore one's body also? Peter Ackroyd strange body soul Under the force of the imagination, nature itself is changed. Peter Ackroyd force changed imagination Bigotry does not consort easily with free trade. Peter Ackroyd free-trade trade doe The ordinary routines of life are never chronicled by the historian, but they make up almost the whole of experience. Peter Ackroyd historian whole ordinary Sometimes the silences, the gaps, tell us more than Peter Ackroyd gaps silence sometimes Why should a novelist not also be a historian? To force unnatural divisions within the English language is to work against its capacious and accommodating nature. To expect a writer to produce only novels, or only histories, is equivalent to demanding from a composer that he or she write only string quartets or piano sonatas. Peter Ackroyd piano novelists writing
