Mervyn Peake Quotes

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.

To live at all is miracle enough.

There is a brotherhood among the kindly- Closer and defter and more integral- Than any of aisle or coven- For love rang out before the chapel bell

There are times when the air that floats between mortals becomes, in its stillness and silence, as cruel as the edge of a scythe.

Yet not with all of me am I in love. Too much of my own quietness is with me.

Oh how I hate people!

Lingering is so very lonely when one lingers all alone.

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

Life is too fleet for onomatopoeia.

[Peake's books] are actual additions to life; they give, like certain rare dreams, sensations we never had before, and enlarge our conception of the range of possible experience.

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?

I want a lot to eat, I'm going to think today.

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.

I am too rich already, for my eyes Mint gold, while my heart cries.

Noon, ripe as thunder and silent as thought, had fled unfingered.

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

Why break the heart that never beat from love?

I am clever enough to know that I am clever.

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

Seeing an Earl as an owl on a mantelpiece, and having part of one's face removed by a cat, both on the same morning, can temporarily undermine the self-control of any man.

Years on end, and swords on end - where will it end, if our ears unbend - what shall I spend on a wrinkled friend in a pair of tights like a bunch of lights?

I was brooding, boy. Than which there is no richer pastime. It muffles one with rotting plumes. It gives forth sullen music. It is the smell of home.

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.

It was not certain what significance the ceremony held... but the formality was no less sacred for it being unintelligible

The Earth swirls down through the ominous moons of preconsidered generations.

For what use are books to anyone whose days are like a rook's nest with every twig a duty.

Something to remember, that: cats for missiles.

I am the wilderness lost in man.

Mount and begone. The world awaits you.

Here, are the stiffening hills, here, the rich cargoCongealed in the dark arteries, Old veinsThat hold Glamorgan's blood.The midnight miner in the secret seams, Limb, life, and

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

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.

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.

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

How's the blood-stream, my dear, invaluable little woman? How's the blood-stream?"..."It's quite comfortable, sir...I think, sir, thank yo

For what is more lovable than failure?

I am too rich already, for my eyes mint

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

In great thick dusty books he readAnd hardly ever went to bedBefore it was e

If seeing her an hour before her lastWeak cough into all blackness I could yetBe held by chalk-white

If seeing her an hour before her lastWeak cough into all blackness I could yetBe held by chalk-white walls

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

The vastest things are those we may not learn.We are not taught to die, nor to be born, Nor how to burnWith love.How pitiful is our enforced returnTo those small things we are the masters of.