117 Quotes by Mervyn Peake

I want a lot to eat, I’m going to think today.

It was then that the Boy went through his darkest hell of all: the long ache of his body, acute as it was, was yet forgotten or disposed of in some way, for he was filled with a disembodied pain, an illness so penetrating, so horrible, that had he been given the opportunity to die he would have taken it. No normal sensation could find a way through this overpowering nausea of the soul that filled him.

He watched her almost with indifference -for it was all in the past-and even the present was nothing to the pride of his memory.

Years on end, and swords on end – where will it end, if our ears unbend – what shall I spend on a wrinkled friend in a pair of tights like a bunch of lights?

Through her, in microcosm, the wide earth sobbed. The starglobe sank in her; the colours faded. The death-dew rose and the wild birds in her breast climbed to her throat and gathered songless, hovering, all tumult, wing to wing, so ardent for those climes where all things end.

Don’t you think so? Don’t you think so?’ ‘I am far beyond thinking, bone of my bone. Far, far beyond thinking, I hand over the reins to you, Irma. Mount and be gone. The world awaits you.

No eye may see dispassionately. There is no comprehension at a glance. Only the recognition of damsel, horse or fly and the assumption of damsel, horse or fly; and so with dreams and beyond, for what haunts the heart will, when it is found, leap foremost, blinding the eye and leaving the main of Life in darkness.

For what use are books to anyone whose days are like a rook’s nest with every twig a duty.

Yet not with all of me am I in love. Too much of my own quietness is with me.