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“His face wore the resigned expression of one who knew that the only difference between one day and the next lies in the pages of a calendar.”

Mervyn Peake

Source: Gormenghast (1950), Chapter 11 (p. 441)

“Leave the stronger
and the lesser
things to me!
Lest that conger
named Vanessa
who is longer
than a dresser
visits thee.”

Mervyn Peake

Poem Vanessa

“Once there were islands all a-sprout with palms: and coral reefs and sands as white as milk. What is there now but a vast shambles of the heart? Filth, squalor, and a world of little men.”

Mervyn Peake book Titus Alone

Source: Titus Alone (1959), Chapter 114 (p. 1012)

“The days wear out the months and the months wear out the years, and a flux of moments, like an unquiet tide, eats at the black coast of futurity.”

Mervyn Peake

Source: Gormenghast (1950), Chapter 51, section 5 (p. 667)

“It was not possible for him to visit his library as often as he wished, for the calls made upon him by the endless ceremonials which were his exacting duty to perform robbed him for many hours each day of his only pleasure—books.”

Mervyn Peake book Titus Groan

Source: Titus Groan (1946), Chapter 29 “The Library” (p. 158)

““Then be silent,” said Titus, and in spite of his anger, the heady wine of autocracy tasted sweet upon his tongue—sweet and dangerous—for he was only now learning that he had power over others, not only through the influence of his birthright but through a native authority that was being wielded for the first time—and all this he knew to be dangerous, for as it grew, this bullying would taste ever sweeter and fiercer and the naked cry of freedom would become faint and the Thing who had taught him freedom would become no more than a memory.”

Mervyn Peake

Source: Gormenghast (1950), Chapter 77 (p. 774)

“His days were full of meaningless ceremonies whose sacredness appeared to be in inverse ratio to their comprehensibility or usefulness.”

Mervyn Peake

Source: Gormenghast (1950), Chapter 80 (p. 802)

“He was meaner, more irritable, more impatient for the ultimate power which could only be his through the elimination of all rivals; and if he had ever had any scruples, any love at all for even a monkey, a book, or a sword-hilt, all this, and even this, had been cauterized and drowned away.”

Mervyn Peake

Source: Gormenghast (1950), Chapter 58 (p. 704)

“The summer was heavy with a kind of soft grey-blue weight in the sky—yet not in the sky, for it was as though there were no sky, but only air, an impalpable grey-blue substance, drugged with the weight of its own heat and hue.”

Mervyn Peake book Titus Groan

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

“The ritual which his body had had to perform for fifty years had been no preparation for the unexpected.”

Mervyn Peake book Titus Groan

Source: Titus Groan (1946), Chapter 41 “The Burning” (pp. 248-249)

“There is no point in erecting a structure,” said Muzzlehatch, taking no notice of Titus’s question, “unless someone else pulls it down. There is no value in a rule until it is broken. There is nothing in life unless there is death at the back of it. Death, dear boy, leaning over the edge of the world and grinning like a boneyard.”

Mervyn Peake book Titus Alone

Source: Titus Alone (1959), Chapter 14 (p. 826)

“They knew now that they could never accomplish that long carpet-journey with anything like Cutflower’s air, but he reminded them at every footstep, every inclination of the head, that the whole point of life was to be happy.”

Mervyn Peake

Source: Gormenghast (1950), Chapter 34 (p. 570)

“So you thought you’d come back, my wicked one. Where have you been?”
“In hell,” said Titus. “Swigging blood and munching scorpions.”
“That must have been great fun, my darling.”

Mervyn Peake book Titus Alone

“Not so,” said Titus, “hell is overrated.”
Source: Titus Alone (1959), Chapter 42 (p. 881)

“I saw all of a sudden
No sign of any ship.”

Mervyn Peake

Poem O'er seas that have no beaches

““I am a beggar.”
“You are a travesty,” said Titus, “and when you die the earth will breathe again.””

Mervyn Peake book Titus Alone

Source: Titus Alone (1959), Chapter 16 (p. 829)

“And yet, though his eyes shone with the thrill of his discovery, he suffered at the same time a pang of resentment—a resentment that this alien realm should be able to exist in a world that appeared to have no reference to his home and which seemed, in fact, supremely self-sufficient.”

Mervyn Peake book Titus Alone

Source: Titus Alone (1959), Chapter 18 (p. 831)

“This extreme air of abstraction, of empty and bland removedness, was almost terrifying. It was that kind of unconcern that humbled the ardent, the passionate of nature, and made them wonder why they were expending so much energy of body and spirit when every day but led them to the worms. Deadyawn, by temperament or lack of it, achieved unwittingly what wise men crave: equipoise.”

Mervyn Peake

Source: Gormenghast (1950), Chapter 11 (p. 441)

““There’s something else, Mr. Muzzlehatch.”
“I’m sure there is. In fact there is everything else.””

Mervyn Peake book Titus Alone

Source: Titus Alone (1959), Chapter 47 (p. 893)

“It's not their fault if, in the heat
Of their transactions, I repeat
It's not their fault if vampires meet
And gurgle in their spats.”

Mervyn Peake

Poem The men in bowler hats are sweet

“Art should be artless, not heartless.”

Mervyn Peake book Titus Alone

Source: Titus Alone (1959), Chapter 24 (p. 845)