Peter Ackroyd Quotes - Page 3

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• 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 dancer but I never fulfilled that ambition either.

  Peter Ackroyd

  Disappointment, Children, Ambition

  4 Copy quote

• Murderers will try to recall the sequence of events, they will remember exactly what they did just before and just after. But they can never remember the actual moment of killing. This is why they will always leave a clue.

  Peter Ackroyd

  Trying, Events, Remember

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• Familial love can find an echo in our own hearts just as it did in that of Charles Dickens.

  Peter Ackroyd

  Heart, Echoes, Dickens

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• The English have always been greedy for news of times past, with that mixture of fatalism and melancholy which is part of the national character.

  Peter Ackroyd

  Character, Past, News

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• A triptych in which the presiding deities are Mother, England and Me.

  Peter Ackroyd

  Mother, England, Deities

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• 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

  Children, Animal, Climbing

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• 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

  Soul, Body, Strange

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• The endless chatter of this journey had wearied me.

  Peter Ackroyd

  Journey, Endless, Chatter

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• I have liv'd long enough for others, like the Dog in the Wheel, and it is now the Season to begin for myself: I cannot change that Thing call'd Time, but I can alter its Posture and, as Boys do turn a looking-glass against the Sunne, so I will dazzle you all.

  Peter Ackroyd

  Dog, Boys, Glasses

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• One can forgive Shakespeare anything, except one's own bad lines.

  Peter Ackroyd

  Forgiving, Lines

  "The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde". Book by Peter Ackroyd, 1983.

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• Bigotry does not consort easily with free trade.

  Peter Ackroyd

  Doe, Trade, Free Trade

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• As a Londoner I was able to see how the world of power and money cast its shadow on those who failed.

  Peter Ackroyd

  Shadow, World, Able

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• There are certain people who seem doomed to buy certain houses. The house expects them. It waits for them.

  Peter Ackroyd

  People, House, Waiting

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• 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

  Reading, School, Editors

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• 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

  Spiritual, Exercise, Imagination

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  Important, Three, Fiction

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• 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

  4 Copy quote

• 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 words or sentences really: came from nothing. Self-educated. Luck. Energy. Curiosity. Ambition. That's it. Nothing at all can illuminate the work as far as I can tell.

  Peter Ackroyd

  Ambition, Self, Interesting

  "London calling" by John O'Mahony, www.theguardian.com. July 2, 2004.

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  "The Big Life" by Andrew Anthony, www.theguardian.com. September 3, 2005.

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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; you just grab it when it's there then just release it when it's time to go. There's a lot of instinct, not planning.

  Peter Ackroyd

  Book, Planning, Instinct

  "Peter Ackroyd: 'I just want to tell a story'" by Euan Ferguson, www.theguardian.com. August 25, 2011.

  4 Copy quote

• 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 when I wrote 'Hawksmoor' I believed in psychic geography. But as soon as I type the last full stop, I'm back to being a complete blank again.

  Peter Ackroyd

  Believe, Writing, Psychics

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• I detest self-regard. If my work has taught me anything, it is that self-aggrandisement is completely unhistorical.

  Peter Ackroyd

  Self, Taught, Regard

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• Health, money. That's what people worried about in the 14th century as much as today. I find it so much more interesting than the supposed activities of kings, queens, generals.

  Peter Ackroyd

  Kings, Queens, People

  "Peter Ackroyd: 'I just want to tell a story'" by Euan Ferguson, www.theguardian.com. August 25, 2011.

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• 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 forget who they are.

  Peter Ackroyd

  Character, Writing, Tunes

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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 haven't. I've got nothing to say. My opinion is of no consequence or value.

  Peter Ackroyd

  Voice, Important, Opinion

  "Tales of the city" by Simon Hattenstone, www.theguardian.com. August 11, 2003.

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