200 Quotes by Peter Ackroyd




  • Author Peter Ackroyd
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    There are those who say further that these are meer Dreames and no true Relations, but I say back to them: look upon my Churches in the Spittle-fields, in Limehouse, and now in the Parish of Wapping Stepney, and do you not wonder why they lead you into a darker World which on Reflection you know to be your own? Every Patch of Ground by them has its Hypochondriack Distemper and Disorder; every Stone of them bears the marks of Scorching by which you may follow the true Path of God.

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  • Author Peter Ackroyd
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    ...the true God is to be venerated in obscure and fearful Places, with Horror in their Approaches, and thus did our Ancestors worship the Daemon in the form of great Stones.

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  • Author Peter Ackroyd
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    But just as my philosophy had ceased to interest me as soon as it was formulated into a set of principles so, when I saw myself being imitated, I realised at once what an incubus my aesthetic personality might become if I were to be trapped within it. Imitation changes, not the impersonator, but the impersonated.

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  • Author Peter Ackroyd
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    I asked him what he said, for there was such a mish-mash of Conversation around us that I could scarcely understand him - the frequenters of Taverns have Hearts of Curd and Souls of Milk Sop, but they have Mouths like Cannons which stink of Tobacco and their own foul Breath as they cry What News? What's a Clock? Methinks it's Cold to Day! Thus is it a Hospital For Fools

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  • Author Peter Ackroyd
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    He could not bear to part with his paintings because they were an aspect of his being.

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  • Author Peter Ackroyd
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    Elaine turned to her father in her distress. ‘Father will you give me permission to ride after Sir Lancelot? I must reach him. Otherwise I will go out of my mind with grief.’‘Go, good daughter. Rescue him, if you can.’So she made herself ready for the journey, weeping all the time. Gawain himself rode back to the court of the king in London” –The Fair Maid of Astolat

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