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Mervyn Peake Quotes | Quotes said by Mervyn Peake

  • Mervyn Peake Quote #1

    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?


  • Mervyn Peake Quote #2

    And then he began to laugh in a peculiar way of his own which was both violent and soundless. His heavy reclining body, draped in its black gown, heaved to and fro. His knees drew themselves up to his chin. His arms dangled over the sides of the chair and were helpless. His head rolled from side to side. It was as though he were in the last stages of strychnine poisoning. But no sound came, nor did his mouth even open. Gradually the spasm grew weaker, and when the natural sand colour of his face had returned (for his corked-up laughter had turned it dark red) he began his smoking again in earnest.

  • Mervyn Peake Quote #3

    As I see it, life is an effort to grip before they slip through one's fingers and slide into oblivion, the startling, the ghastly or the blindingly exquisite fish of the imagination before they whip away on the endless current and are lost for ever in oblivion's black ocean.

  • Mervyn Peake Quote #4

    But his mind saw nothing of all this. His mind was engaged in a warfare of the gods. His mind paced outwards over no-man's-land, over the fields of the slain, paced to the rhythm of the blood's red bugles. To be alone and evil! To be a god at bay. What was more absolute?

  • Mervyn Peake Quote #5

    Civilized people don't feel.

  • Mervyn Peake Quote #6

    Each day we live is a glass room
    Until we break it with the thrusting
    Of the spirit and pass through
    The splintered walls to the green pastures
    Where the birds and buds are breaking
    Into fabulous song and hue
    By the still waters.

    - Each Day We Live is a Glass Room

  • Mervyn Peake Quote #7

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

  • Mervyn Peake Quote #8

    From daybreak to sunset she turned her thoughts, like boulders, over. She set them in long lines. She rearranged their order...

  • Mervyn Peake Quote #9

    Gormenghast.
    Withdrawn and ruinous it broods in umbra: the immemorial masonry: the towers, the tracts. Is all corroding? No. Through an avenue of spires a zephyr floats; a bird whistles; a freshet beats away from a choked river. Deep in a fist of stone a doll's hand wriggles, warm rebellious on the frozen palm. A shadow shifts its length. A spider stirs...
    And darkness winds between the characters.
    - Gormenghast

  • Mervyn Peake Quote #10

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

  • Mervyn Peake Quote #11

    Here, are the stiffening hills, here, the rich cargo
    Congealed in the dark arteries,
    Old veins
    That hold Glamorgan's blood.
    The midnight miner in the secret seams,
    Limb, life, and bread.

    - Rhondda Valley

  • Mervyn Peake Quote #12

    His mother stood before him like a monument. He saw her great outline through the blur of his weakness and his passion. She made no movement at all.

  • Mervyn Peake Quote #13

    His was not the hatred that arises suddenly like a storm and as suddenly abates. It was, once the initial shock of anger and pain was over, a calculated thing that grew in a bloodless way.

  • Mervyn Peake Quote #14

    How merciful a thing is man's ignorance of his immediate future! What a ghastly, paralysing thing it would have been if all those present could have known what was about to happen within a matter of seconds! For nothing short of pre-knowledge could have stopped the occurrence, so suddenly it sprang upon them.

  • Mervyn Peake Quote #15

    How's the blood-stream, my dear, invaluable little woman? How's the blood-stream?...
    It's quite comfortable, sir...I think, sir, thank you....
    Aha!...a comfortable stream, is it? Aha! v-e-r-y good. V-e-r-y good. Dawdling 'twixt hill and hill, no doubt. Meandering through groves of bone, threading the tissues and giving what sustenance it can to your dear old body...I am so glad. But in yourself - right deep down in yourself - how do you feel? Carnally speaking, are you at peace - from the dear grey hairs of your head to the patter of your little feet - are you at peace?
    What does he mean, dear? said poor Mrs. Slagg, clutching Fuschia's arm....
    He wants to know if you feel well or not.

  • Mervyn Peake Quote #16

    I am too rich already, for my eyes mint gold.

    - Coloured Money

  • Mervyn Peake Quote #17

    I want a big breakfast, said Fuchsia at last. I want a lot to eat, I'm going to think today.

  • Mervyn Peake Quote #18

    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

  • Mervyn Peake Quote #19

    If seeing her an hour before her last
    Weak cough into all blackness I could yet
    Be held by chalk-white walls

    - The Consumptive. Belsen 1945

  • Mervyn Peake Quote #20

    In the presence of real tragedy you feel neither pain nor joy nor hatred, only a sense of enormous space and time suspended, the great doors open to black eternity, the rising across the terrible field of that last enormous, unanswerable question.

  • Mervyn Peake Quote #21

    It was not often that Flay approved of happiness in others.

  • Mervyn Peake Quote #22

    It was not often that Flay approved of happiness in others. He saw in happiness the seeds of independence, and in independence the seeds of revolt. But on an occasion such as this it was different, for the spirit of convention was being rigorously adhered to, and in between his ribs Mr. Flay experienced twinges of pleasure.

  • Mervyn Peake Quote #23

    Life is too fleet for onomatopoeia.

  • Mervyn Peake Quote #24

    Lingering is so very lonely when one lingers all alone.

  • Mervyn Peake Quote #25

    Meanwhile Bellgrove had been savouring love's rare aperitif, the ageless language of the eyes.

  • Mervyn Peake Quote #26

    Oh how I hate people!

  • Mervyn Peake Quote #27

    One thing at a time,' said the Boy. 'You must be patient. This is a day of hope and wild revenge. Do not interrupt me. I am a courier from another world. I bring you golden words.

    Listen!' said the Boy. 'Where I come from there is no more fear. But there is a roaring and a bellowing and a cracking of bones. And sometimes there is silence when, lolling on your thrones, your slaves adore you.

  • Mervyn Peake Quote #28

    She had expressed herself, as women will, in a smug broadside of pastel shades. Nothing clashed because nothing had the strength to clash; everything murmured of safety among the hues; all was refinement.

  • Mervyn Peake Quote #29

    She had shown him by her independence how it was only fear that held people together. The fear of being alone and the fear of being different.

  • Mervyn Peake Quote #30

    Swelter, as soon as he saw who it was, stopped dead, and across his face little billows of flesh ran swiftly here and there until, as though they had determined to adhere to the same impulse, they swept up into both oceans of soft cheek, leaving between them a vacuum, a gaping segment like a slice cut from a melon. It was horrible. It was as though nature had lost control. As though the smile, as a concept, as a manifestation of pleasure, had been a mistake, for here on the face of Swelter the idea had been abused.

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