“ If I were a Writer now, I would wish to thicken the water of my Discourse so that it was no longer easy or familiar. I would chuse a huge lushious Style! Peter Ackroyd
“ He visited the country house of a goldsmith, Sir Robert Viner, where ‘he showed me a black boy that he had that died of a consumption; and being dead, he caused him to be dried in an oven, and lies th… Peter Ackroyd
“ And when I was young, did I ever tell you, I always wanted to get insidea book and never come out again? I loved reading so much I wantedto be a part of it, and there were some books I could have stay… Peter Ackroyd
“ If you look from a distance, you observe a sea of roofs, and have no more knowledge of the dark streams of people than of denizens of some unknown ocean. But the city is always a heaving and restless… Peter Ackroyd
“ Hawksmoor had often noticed how, in the moments when he first carne upon a corpse, all the objects around it wavered for an instant and became unreal- the trees which rose above a body hidden in woodl… Peter Ackroyd
“ As the Houses tumbled upon the Streets with a great roaring Noise, they cryed out We are undone! We are great Sinners! and the like: and yet as soon as the Danger was passed, they came back with their… Peter Ackroyd
“ A large proportion of Venetians worked in the textile industry. There were the lace-makers, their eyesight ruined by their labour. Children, from the age of five, were enrolled in the trade. The exqui… Peter Ackroyd
“ The writing of history is often another way of defining chaos. There is in fact a case for saying that human history, as it is generally described and understood, is the sum total of accident and unin… Peter Ackroyd
“ Time. In another time. Either before or after. They were not stars,but fires. They were the souls of birds. They were entries into the vast fire. They were the eyes of the dead. And in the darkness th… Peter Ackroyd
“ The music of a popular song now came from the radio as Hawksmoor gazed out of the window; and he saw a door closing, a boy dropping a coin in the street, a woman turning her head, a man calling. For a… Peter Ackroyd
“ Sexuality was a fluid, infinitely malleable and indefinite condition. It permeated the streets of London like the smell of pies and sweetmeats. Peter Ackroyd
“ Less violent diversions can also be cited. An inspection of the pupils of Magdalen College, Oxford, in the very early years of the sixteenth century, revealed that ‘Stokes was unchaste with the wife o… Peter Ackroyd
“ In the end the natives would be so mixed and mingled with the new settlers that the term Saxon or Angle ceased to have any meaning. All would become English. Peter Ackroyd
“ I believe now that there can be no real sense of loss or seperation withoutthe recognition of death; we were too young to consider any such eventuality,and simply moved on with our lives into some ind… Peter Ackroyd
“ It was not simply the effect of an epigram but, rather, the product of a fertile mind and keen observation. Wit was the currency of the court of Charles II. Peter Ackroyd
“ I realized that my time in this place had come to an end; now that my schooldays were over, I no longer belonged here. I had always been a stranger and, if I stayed, I would become a stranger to mysel… Peter Ackroyd
“ As the Great rise by degrees of Greatnesse to the Pitch of Glory, so the Miserable sink to the Depth of their Misery by a continued Series of Disasters. Yet it cannot be denied but most Men owe not on… Peter Ackroyd
“ A person who had no one would be well advised to cobble together some passable ghost. Breathe it into being and coax it along with words of love. Offer it each phantom crumb and shield it from harm wi… Peter Ackroyd
“ So on 6 February 1685, the new king, James II, ascended the throne in the face of sustained and organized opposition from Shaftesbury and the Whigs. He was fifty-two years of age and in vigorous healt… Peter Ackroyd
“ There is no humiliation worse than the consciousness of a wasted life. It stains the spirit, forestalls hope, and destroys any motive foraction or change. Peter Ackroyd
