“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)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "It was not possible for him to visit his library as often as he wished, for the calls made upon him by the endless cere…" by Mervyn Peake?
Mervyn Peake photo
Mervyn Peake91
English writer, artist, poet and illustrator 1911–1968

Related quotes

Margaret Mead photo

“Each man's place in the social scheme of his village is know; the contribution which he must make to the work and ceremonial of the village and the share of the whole which he will receive back again are likewise defined. For failure to receive what is due to him, he is fined even more heavily than for failure to give that which is due from him. Just as a man must accept his privileges as well as discharge his duties, so is he also the guardian of his own status and if, as may happen to a high caste, that status is affronted, he himself must perform a ceremony to restore it.”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

Source: 1940s, Balinese Character (1942), p. 7

Hartley Coleridge photo

“Are we not bold to bid a god repent;
To break upon his slumbers with our prayers;
To watch him day and night; to wear him out
With endless supplication? Perhaps to beg
His kind attention to a pleasant tale;
To cheat him into pity, and conclude
Each story with Prometheus?”

Hartley Coleridge (1796–1849) British poet, biographer, essayist, and teacher

Sylphs
Poems (1851), Prometheus

Virginia Woolf photo

“Each has his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by heart and his friends can only read the title.”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

“If shame is cried upon him, … he will point out … that today he has to earn his living, and that it is not his fault if he is eager to support the class which takes a pleasure in his productions.”

Julien Benda (1867–1956) French essayist

Source: Treason of the Intellectuals (1927), pp. 158–159

Molière photo

“He makes his cook his merit,
And the world visits his dinners and not him.”

Molière The Misanthrope

Que de son cuisinier il s'est fait un mérite,
Et que c'est à sa table à qui l'on rend visite.
Act II, sc. iv
Le Misanthrope (1666)

Ali Zayn al-Abidin photo

“Anybody who performs his necessary duties that God has obliged him perform, he himself will be one of the best worshippers of all.”

Ali Zayn al-Abidin (659–713) Great-grandson of the Prophet Muhammad

Muhammad al-Hur al-Aamili, Wasā'il al-Shī‘ah, vol.11, p. 206.
Religious wisdom

Ulysses S. Grant photo

“We are responsible for these things in his race. It is not fair to visit our faults upon him, let him alone.”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

As quoted in letter to Henry Ward Beecher, by Mark Twain.

“The only thing that mattered was that the quarter century or so he had remaining would be his life, to live out as he chose and in his own best interests. Nothing took precedence over that: not work, not friendships, not relationships with women. Those were all components of his life, and valuable ones, but they did not define it or control it. That was up to him, and him alone.
The possibilities, Jeff knew, were endless.”

Ken Grimwood book Replay

Source: Replay (1986), Chapter 21 (p. 311)

Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“Each man has his own vocation; his talent is his call. There is one direction in which all space is open to him.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Patrick Modiano photo

“He (Rigaud) the unpleasant impression that he was returning to his point of departure, to the scene of his unhappy childhood, and that he was sensing the invisible presence of his mother, just when he had managed to forget the wretched woman: all his memory of her were unpleasant. And r once again he would have to remain a prisoner in the garden for hours upon hour …the thought made him shiver. The war was playing a dirty trick on him in forcing him to return to the prison that had been his childhood, from which he had escaped so long ago. Reality was now resembling the nightmares he regularly had: it was the beginning of new term in the school dormitory…..”

Patrick Modiano (1945) French writer

Source: Honey Moon (1990), p. 57

Related topics