117 Quotes by Mervyn Peake

When he at least reached the door the handle had cease to vibrate. Lowering himself suddenly to his knees he placed his head and the vagaries of his left eye (which was for ever trying to dash up and down the vertical surface of the door), he was able by dint of concentration to observe, within three inches of his keyholed eye, an eye which was not his, being not only of a different colour to his own iron marble, but being, which is more convincing, on the other side of the door.

He had no longer any need for home, for he carried his Gormenghast within him. All that he sought was jostling within himself. He had grown up. What a boy had set out to seek a man had found, found by the act of living.

But Fuchsia might as well have been carved from dark marble. Only her tears moved.

Hold fast To the lawOf the lastCold tome,Where the earthOf the truthLies thickOn the page,And the loamOf faithIn the inkLong fledFrom the droneOf the nibFlows onThrough the breathOf the boneRebornIn a dawnOf doomWhere bloomsThe roseFor the windsThe childFor the tombThe thrushFor the hushOf song,The cornFor the scytheAnd the thornIn waitFor the heartTill the lastOf the firstDepart,And the leastOf the pastIs dustAnd the dustIs lost.Hold fast!

Il castello era silenzioso come un mostro impalato.

...she stepped outwards into the dim atmosphere, and falling, was most fabulously lit by the moon and the sun.

Forse non siete a conoscenza, ma vostra madre aveva il sangue cattivo. Molto cattivo. Oppure sognate degli ermellini.

Noon, ripe as thunder and silent as thought, had fled unfingered.

But there were also times when she cried out in the darkness biting her lips - cried out against the substance of her age: for it was now that she should be young; now above all other times, with the wisdom in her, the wisdom that was frittered away in her 'teens', set aside in her twenties, now, lying there, palpable and with forty summers gone. She clenched her hands together. What good was wisdom; what good was anything when the fawn is fled from the grove?