Top 49 Quotes by Peter Ackroyd

About Peter Ackroyd

These are some quotes by British author Peter Ackroyd Author, who was born on October 5, 1949.

All cities are impressive in their way, because they represent the aspiration of men to lead a common life; those people who wish to live agreeable lives, and in constant intercourse with one another, will build a city as beautiful as Paris.

Peter Ackroyd

I can remember picking up weighty tomes on the history of science and the history of philosophy and reading those when I was small.

I can remember picking up weighty tomes on the history of science and the history of philosophy and reading those when I was small.

Peter Ackroyd

Thomas More's birth was noted by his father upon a blank page at the back of a copy of Geoffrey of Monmouth's 'Historia Regum Britanniae'; for a lawyer John More was remarkably inexact in his references to that natal year, and the date has been moved from 1477 to 1478 and back again.

Peter Ackroyd

Freud was just a novelist.

Freud was just a novelist.

Peter Ackroyd

It sometimes seems to me that the whole course of English history was one of accident, confusion, chance and unintended consequences - there's no real pattern.

It sometimes seems to me that the whole course of English history was one of accident, confusion, chance and unintended consequences - there's no real pattern.

Peter Ackroyd

I don't find myself interesting as a person and the details I find boring, quite frankly. You could sum it up in a few words or sentences really: came from nothing. Self-educated. Luck. Energy. Curiosity. Ambition. That's it. Nothing at all can illuminate the work as far as I can tell.

Peter Ackroyd

As a Londoner I was able to see how the world of power and money cast its shadow on those who failed.

As a Londoner I was able to see how the world of power and money cast its shadow on those who failed.

Peter Ackroyd

There are certain people who seem doomed to buy certain houses. The house expects them. It waits for them.

There are certain people who seem doomed to buy certain houses. The house expects them. It waits for them.

Peter Ackroyd

I wanted to be a poet when I was 20; I had no interest in fiction or biography and precious little interest in history, but those three elements in my life have become the most important.

I wanted to be a poet when I was 20; I had no interest in fiction or biography and precious little interest in history, but those three elements in my life have become the most important.

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 attracted to the Gothic and spiritual imagination, and I've always been interested in visionaries.

Peter Ackroyd

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