Absinthe removes the bitter taste of failure and grants me strange visions which are charming principally because they cannot be written down. Only in absinthe do I become entirely free and, when I drink it, I understand the symbolic mysteries of odor and of color.

— Peter Ackroyd

A letter from a French cleric to Nicholas of St. Albany, written c. 1178, rehearsed what was already a familiar perception: Your island is surrounded by water, and not unnaturally its inhabitants are affected by the nature of the element in which they live. Unsubstantial fantasies slide easily into their minds. They think their dreams to be visions, and their visions to be divine. We cannot blame them, for such is the nature of their land. I have often noticed that the English are greater dreams than the French.

— Peter Ackroyd

And I was a Child again, watching the bright World. But the Spell broke when at this Juncture some Gallants jumped from the Pitt onto the Stage and behaved as so many Merry-Andrews among the Actors, which reduced all to Confusion. I laugh'd with them also, for I like to make Merry among the Fallen and there is a pleasure to be had in the Observation of the Deformity of Things. Thus, when the Play resumed after the Disturbance, it was only to excite my Ridicule with its painted Fictions, wicked Hypocrisies and villainous Customs, all depicted with a little pert Jingle of Words and a rambling kind of Mirth to make the Insipidness and Sterility pass. There was no pleasure in seeing it, and nothing to burden the Memory after: like a voluntaries before a Lesson it was absolutely forgotten, nothing to be remembered or repeated.

— Peter Ackroyd

And now we come to the Heart of our Design: the art of Shadows you must know well, Walter, and you must be instructed how to Cast them with due Care. It is only the Darkness that can give crew Form to our Work and crew Perspective to our Fabric, for there is no Light without Darkness and no Substance without Shadow (and I turn this Thought over in my Mind: what Life is there which is not a Portmanteau of Shadows and Chimeras?). I build in the Day to bring News of the Night and of Sorrow, I continued, and then I broke off for Walter's sake.

— Peter Ackroyd

And when I was young, did I ever tell you, I always wanted to get inside 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 inform ever.

— Peter Ackroyd

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 afterward deliver'd of a Child without a Head. So lives the Power of Imagination even in this Rational Age.

— Peter Ackroyd

A woman is a deep Ditch, said he, her House inclines to Death and her Paths unto the Devil

— Peter Ackroyd

Be informed, also, that this good and savory Parish is the home of Hectors, Trainers, Biters who all go under the general appellation of Rooks. Here are all the Jilts, Cracks, Prostitutes, Night-walkers, Whores, Linen-lifters, who are like so many Jake's, Privies, Houses of Office, Ordure, Excrement, Easements and piles of Sir-reverence: the whores of Ratcliffe High-way smell of Tarpaulin and stinking Cod from their continually Traffic with seamen's Breeches. There are other such wretched Objects about these ruined Lanes, all of them lamentable Instances of Vengeance. And it is not strange (as some think) how they will haunt the same Districts and will not leave off their Crimes until they are apprehended, for these Streets are their Theatre. Theft, Boredom and Homicide peep out of the very Windows of their Souls; Lying, Perjury, Fraud, Impudence and Misery are stamped upon their very Countenances as now they walk within the Shadow of my Church.

— Peter Ackroyd

Books do not per­ish like hu­mankind. Of course, we com­mon­ly see them bro­ken in the hab­er­dash­er's shop when on­ly a few months be­fore they lay bound on the sta­tion­er's stall; these are not true works, but mere trash and new­fan­gle­ness for the vul­gar. There are thou­sands of such gew­gaws and toys which peo­ple have in their cham­bers, or which they keep up­on their shelves, be­liev­ing that they are pre­cious things, when they are the mere pass­ing fol­lies of the pass­ing time and of no more val­ue than pa­pers gathered from some dunghill or raked by chance out of the ken­nel. True books are filled with the pow­er of the un­der­stand­ing which is the in­her­itance of the ages: you may take up a book in time, but you read it in eter­ni­ty.

— Peter Ackroyd

But just as my philosophy had ceased to interest me as soon as it was formulated into a set of principles so, when I saw myself being imitated, I realized at once what an incubus my aesthetic personality might become if I were to be trapped within it. Imitation changes, not the impersonator, but the impersonated.

— Peter Ackroyd