Mervyn Peake: Likeness

Mervyn Peake was English writer, artist, poet and illustrator. Explore interesting quotes on likeness.
Mervyn Peake: 182   quotes 3   likes

“And now, my poor old woman, why are you crying so bitterly? It is autumn. The leaves are falling from the trees like burning tears- the wind howls. Why must you mimic them?”

Mervyn Peake book Titus Groan

Source: Titus Groan

Autumn , Tear , Tree , Cry

“But we have seen it in the air,
A fairy like a William Pear”

Mervyn Peake

Poem O Here it is

“This tower, patched unevenly with black ivy, arose like a mutilated finger from among the fists of knuckled masonry and pointed blasphemously at heaven.”

Mervyn Peake book Titus Groan

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

“The paper is breathless
Under the hand
And the pencil is poised
Like a warlock's wand.”

Mervyn Peake

Poem in The Glassblowers (1950)

“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

“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

“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)

““Life must be various, incongruous, vile and electric. Life must be ruthless and as full of love as may be found in a jaguar’s fang.”
“I like the way you talk, young man,” said Grass, “but I don’t know what you’re saying.””

Mervyn Peake book Titus Alone

Source: Titus Alone (1959), Chapter 24 (p. 841)

Love , Life , Way , Grass

“An aching to be once again in the land from which he grew gave him no rest. There is no calm for those who are uprooted. They are wanderers, homesick and defiant. Love itself is helpless to heal them though the dust rises with every footfall—drifts down the corridors—settles on branch or cornice—each breath an inhalation from the past so that the lungs, like a miner’s, are dark with bygone times.
Whatever they eat, whatever they drink, is never the bread of home or the corn of their own valleys. It is never the wine of their own vineyards. It is a foreign brew.”

Mervyn Peake book Titus Alone

Source: Titus Alone (1959), Chapter 34 (p. 862)

Love , Home , Drink , Wine

“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)

Future

“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)

Life , Death , World , Boy

“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)

Life , Happiness

“His mind fell asleep. His wits fell awake. His cock trembled like a harp-string.”

Mervyn Peake book Titus Alone

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