Quotes from Mervyn Peake

These three sere beings at the shadowy corner waited on. Nannie was sixtynine, Keda was twenty-two, Titus was twelve days old.

There was a sound of something spreading as an area of seven flagstones became hidden from view beneath a catalyptic mass of wine-drenched blubber.

This hall, where once the lovers of a bygone time paced and paused and turned one about another in forgotten measures to the sound of forgotten music, this hall was carpeted with lime-white sticks.

And now, my poor old woman, why are you crying so bitterly? It is autumn. The leaves are falling from the trees like burning tears – the wind howls. Why must you mimic them?

he was able by dint of concentration to observe, within three inches of his keyholed eye, an eye which was not his, being not only a different colour to his own iron marble but being, which is more convincing, on the other side of the door.

Through honeycombs of stone would now be wandering the passions in their clay. There would be tears and there would be strange laughter. Fierce births and deaths beneath umbrageous ceilings. And dreams and violence and disenchantment.

Her voice was so perfect a replica of her sister's as might lead one to suppose that her vocal cords had been snipped from the same line of gut in those obscure regions where such creatures are compounded.

The night was warm and there was no cause to shudder save that a twinge of joy, of dark joy can shake the body, when a man is alone, under the moon, on a secret mission, with hunger in his heart and ice in his brain.

Mervyn Peake came to fame first as an artist. Before the Second World War he was considered to be one of the best portraitists in England, publishing wonderful studies of writers, actors, and painters.

And there shall be a flame-green daybreak soon. And love itself will cry for insurrection! For tomorrow is also a day - and Titus has entered his stronghold.

Cold love's the loveliest love of all. So clear, so crisp, so empty. In short, so civilized.

Lingering is so very lonely when one lingers all alone.

We are all imprisoned by the dictionary. We choose out of that vast, paper-walled prison our convicts, the little black printed words, when in truth we need fresh sounds to utter, new enfranchised noises which would produce a new effect.

This tower, patched unevenly with black ivy, arose like a mutilated finger from among the fists of knuckled masonry and pointed blasphemously at heaven. At night the owls made of it an echoing throat; by day it stood voiceless and cast its long shadow.

To live at all is miracle enough.

I am the wilderness lost in man.

Why break the heart that never beat from love?

Oh how I hate people!

I am clever enough to know that I am clever.

I, while the gods laugh, the world's vortex am; Maelström of passions in that hidden sea Whose waves of all-time lap the coasts of me; And in small compass the dark waters cram. - I, While the Gods Laugh, the World's Vortex Am

For death is life. It is only living that is lifeless.

Each day I live in a glass room unless I break it with the thrusting of my senses and pass through the splintered walls to the great landscape.

He saw in happiness the seeds of independence, and in independence the seeds of revolt.

Life is too fleet for onomatopoeia.