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Peter Ackroyd Quotes

Peter Ackroyd, is an English biographer, novelist and critic with a particular interest in the history and culture of London. For his novels about English history and culture and his biographies of, among others, William Blake, Charles Dickens, T. S. Eliot, Charles Chaplin and Sir Thomas More, he won the Somerset Maugham Award and two Whitbread Awards. He is noted for the volume of work he has produced, the range of styles therein, his skill at assuming different voices, and the depth of his research.

He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1984 and appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2003. Wikipedia  

✵ 5. October 1949
Peter Ackroyd photo

Works

The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde
Peter Ackroyd: 11 quotes1 like

Famous Peter Ackroyd Quotes

“I believe that the gods themselves are frightened of the world which they have fashioned.”

Peter Ackroyd book The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde

Pages 128-9.
The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde (1983)

“And when I was young, did I ever tell you, I always wanted to get inside
a book and never come out again? I loved reading so much I wanted
to be a part of it, and there were some books I could have stayed in
for ever.”

Peter Ackroyd

Source: First Light

“The world is a sea in which we all must surely drown.”

Peter Ackroyd

Source: English Music

“He had the satisfied countenance of a man who has never succeeded in boring himself.”

Peter Ackroyd book The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde

Page 45.
The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde (1983)

“No poet is ever completely lost. He has the secret of his childhood safe with him, like some secret cave in which he can kneel. And, when we read his poetry, we can join him there.”

Peter Ackroyd

Chatterton (London: Abacus, [1987] 1991), ch. 10, p. 151.

“The smell of the library was always the same – the musty odour of old clothes mixed with the keener scent of unwashed bodies, creating what the chief librarian had once described as "the steam of the social soup."”

Peter Ackroyd

Chatterton (London: Abacus, [1987] 1991), ch. 5, p. 72.

Peter Ackroyd Quotes

“London goes beyond any boundary or convention. It contains every wish or word ever spoken, every action or gesture ever made, every harsh or noble statement ever expressed. It is illimitable. It is Infinite London.”

Peter Ackroyd

London: The Biography (London: Vintage, [2000] 2001) p. 779.

“What captivity has been to the Jews, exile has been to the Irish. For us, the romance of our native land begins only after we have left home; it is really only with other people that we become Irishmen.”

Peter Ackroyd book The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde

Page 7.
The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde (1983)

“One can forgive Shakespeare anything, except one's own bad lines.”

Peter Ackroyd book The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde

Page 46.
The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde (1983)

“The English can laugh and at the same time strike you down, without the least compunction. It is the secret of their success as a nation.”

Peter Ackroyd book The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde

Page 25.
The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde (1983)

“Only those with great ambitions know what great fears drive them forward.”

Peter Ackroyd book The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde

Page 52.
The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde (1983)

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