Mervyn Peake: Trending quotes (page 2)

Mervyn Peake book Titus Alone

Source: Titus Alone (1959), Chapter 82 (p. 959)

Failure

“There is something about a swarm that is damaging to the pride of its individual members.”

Mervyn Peake

Source: Gormenghast (1950), Chapter 32 (p. 555)

“If ever he had harboured a conscience in his tough narrow breast he had by now dug out and flung away the awkward thing—flung it so far away that were he ever to need it again he could never find it.”

Mervyn Peake

Source: Gormenghast (1950), Chapter 2 (pp. 404-405)

“He knew that he was caught up in one of those stretches of time when for anything to happen normally would be abnormal. The dawn was too tense and highly charged for any common happening to survive.”

Mervyn Peake

Source: Gormenghast (1950), Chapter 57, section 3 (p. 686)

Time

“The tremendous gulf between the sexes yawned—and an abyss, terrifying and thrilling, sheer and black as the arbour in which they sat; a darkness wide, dangerous, imponderable and littered with the wrecks of broken bridges.”

Mervyn Peake

Source: Gormenghast (1950), Chapter 36 (p. 595)

Sex

“How merciful a thing is man’s ignorance of his immediate future! What a ghastly, paralysing thing it would have been if all those present could have known what was about to happen within a matter of seconds!”

Mervyn Peake

Source: Gormenghast (1950), Chapter 17 (p. 484)

Future

“This upstart, this dangerous, unprecedented upstart, whose pursuit of the doctrines was propelled by a greed for personal power as cold as it was tameless.”

Mervyn Peake

Source: Gormenghast (1950), Chapter 22 (p. 527)

Personality

“Withdrawn and ruinous it broods in umbra: the immemorial masonry: the towers, the tracks. Is all corroding? No. Through an avenue of spires a zephyr floats; a bird whistles; a freshet bears away from a choked river.”

Mervyn Peake

Source: Gormenghast (1950), Chapter 1, section 1 (p. 399)

Bird

“The walls of Gormenghast were like the walls of paradise or the walls of an inferno. The colours were devilish or angelical according to the colour of the mind that watched them. They swam, those walls, with the hues of hell, with the tints of Zion. The breasts of the plumaged seraphim; the scales of Satan.”

Mervyn Peake

Source: Gormenghast (1950), Chapter 38 (p. 606)

Angels , Hell

“Through honeycombs of stone would now be wandering the passions in their clay. There would be tears and there would be strange laughter. Fierce births and deaths beneath umbrageous ceilings. And dreams, and violence, and disenchantment.”

Mervyn Peake book Titus Groan

Source: Titus Groan (1946), Chapter 69 “Mr Rottcodd Again” (p. 396)

Death , Dreams , Birth , Tear

“Autumn returned to Gormenghast like a dark spirit re-entering its stronghold.”

Mervyn Peake book Titus Groan

Source: Titus Groan (1946), Chapter 28 “Flay Brings a Message” (p. 152)

Autumn

“What had happened? As he asked himself the question, he knew the answer. That no one had thought fit to tell him! No one! It was a bitter pill for him to swallow. He had been forgotten. Yet he had always wished to be forgotten. He could not have it both ways.”

Mervyn Peake book Titus Groan

Source: Titus Groan (1946), Chapter 69 “Mr Rottcodd Again” (p. 393)

Way , Question

““You have a rough manner,” said Titus. “But you have saved me twice. Why are you helping me?”
“I have no idea,” said Muzzlehatch. “There must be something wrong with my brain.””

Mervyn Peake book Titus Alone

Source: Titus Alone (1959), Chapter 29 (p. 852)

Idea , Help

“O'er seas that have no beaches
To end their waves upon,
I floated with twelve peaches,
A sofa and a swan.”

Mervyn Peake

Poem O'er seas that have no beaches

Sea

““She thinks she’s a lady.” And then he grinned until the very lake seemed to be in danger of engulfment. “Oh, dear!” the poor thing. Tries so hard, and the more she tries, the less she is. Ha! ha! ha! Take it from me, Fuchsia dear, The only ladies are those to whom the idea of whether they are or not never occurs. Her blood’s all right—Irma’s—same as mine, ha, ha, ha! but it doesn’t go by blood. It’s equipoise, my Gipsy, equipoise that does it—with a bucketful of tolerance thrown in.”

Mervyn Peake book Titus Groan

Source: Titus Groan (1946), Chapter 65 “By Gormenghast Lake” (p. 367)

Idea , Thinking

“It was not certain what significance the ceremony held, for unfortunately the records were lost, but the formality was no less sacred for being unintelligible.”

Mervyn Peake book Titus Groan

Source: Titus Groan (1946), Chapter 40 “Meanwhile” (pp. 230-231)

“Gormenghast, that is, the main massing of the original stone, taken by itself would have displayed a certain ponderous architectural quality were it possible to have ignored the circumfusion of those mean dwellings that swarmed like an epidemic around its outer walls.”

Mervyn Peake book Titus Groan

Source: Titus Groan (1946), Chapter 1 “The Hall of the Bright Carvings” (p. 9; opening words)

“He also knew when to stop. In the fine art of deceit and personal advancement as in any other calling this is the hallmark of the master.”

Mervyn Peake book Titus Groan

Source: Titus Groan (1946), Chapter 31 “Reintroducing the Twins” (p. 173)

Art , Personality

“What was important, now, with her eyes bent upon him, and the shadow of a branch trembling across her breast, was the immemorial game of love: no less a game for being grave. No less grave for being wild. Grave as a great green sky. Grave as a surgeon’s knife.”

Mervyn Peake book Titus Alone

Source: Titus Alone (1959), Chapter 42 (p. 881)

Love , Game

“Drear ritual turned its wheel.”

Mervyn Peake book Titus Groan

Source: Titus Groan (1946), Chapter 60 “In Preparation for Violence” (p. 323)