“ And when the Duke of Alva ordered three hundred Citizens to be put to Death together at Antwerp, a Lady who saw the Sight was presently afterwards deliver'd of a Child without a Head. So lives the Pow… Peter Ackroyd
“ Is Dust immortal then, I ask'd him, so that we may see it blowing through the Centuries? But as Walter gave no Answer I jested with him further to break his Melancholy humour: What is Dust, Master Pyn… Peter Ackroyd
“ He is a Londoner, too, in his writings. In his familiar letters he displays a rambling urban vivacity, a tendency to to veer off the point and to muddle his syntax. He had a brilliantly eclectic mind,… Peter Ackroyd
“ The English seem to relish unsystematic learning of this kind, in the same manner that they embarked upon Grand Tours of Europe in pursuit of a peripatetic scholarship. Peter Ackroyd
“ A letter from a French cleric to Nicholas of St. Albans, written c. 1178, rehearsed what was already a familiar perception: Your island is surrounded by water, and not unnaturally its inhabitants are… Peter Ackroyd
“ London has always provided the landscape for my imagination. It becomes a character - a living being - within each of my books. Peter Ackroyd
“ It may seem unfashionable to say so, but historians should seize the imagination as well as the intellect. History is, in a sense, a story, a narrative of adventure and of vision, of character and of… Peter Ackroyd
“ The value is always in the eye of the beholder. What is worthless to one person may be very important to someone else. Peter Ackroyd
“ Be informed, also, that this good and savoury Parish is the home of Hectors, Trapanners, Biters who all go under the general appelation of Rooks. Here are all the Jilts, Cracks, Prostitutes, Night-wal… Peter Ackroyd
“ But there were four things I taught Walter to consider: 1) That it was Cain who built the first City, 2) That there is a true Science in the World called Scientia Umbrarum which, as to the publick tea… Peter Ackroyd
“ I have always believed that the material world is governed by nonmaterial sources, so that in that sense 'English Music' is an exercise in the spiritual as well as the material. I have always been att… Peter Ackroyd
