Peter Ackroyd Quotes & Sayings (Page 4)

“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.”

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

“I can remember picking up weighty tomes on the history of science and the history of philosophy and reading those when I was small.”

“To watch King Lear is to approach the recognition that there is indeed no meaning in life, and that there are limits to human understanding.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“I don't believe necessarily the past is in the past. It's eternal, it's all around us.”

“I don't in any sense think of myself as a celebrity, which of course I'm not.”

“I never read in bed, only in my study.”