Mervyn Peake > Quotes

“Lingering is so very lonely when one lingers all alone.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

“Why break the heart that never beat from love?”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

“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.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

“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.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

“Oh how I hate people!”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

“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, Titus Groan

“For death is life. It is only living that is lifeless.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

“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.”
― Mervyn Peake

“I am clever enough to know that I am clever.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

“Life is too fleet for onomatopoeia.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

“If ever he had harboured a conscience in his tough narrow breast he had by now dug out and flung away the awkward thing - flung it so far away that were he ever to need it again he could never find it. High-shouldered to a degree little short of malformation, slender and adroit of limb and frame, his eyes close-set and the colour of dried blood, he is climbing the spiral staircase of the soul of Gormenghast, bound for some pinnacle of the itching fancy - some wild, invulnerable eyrie best known to himself; where he can watch the world spread out below him, and shake exultantly his clotted wings”
― Mervyn Peake, The Gormenghast Novels

“He saw in happiness the seeds of independence, and in independence the seeds of revolt.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

“When he at least reached the door the handle had cease to vibrate. Lowering himself suddenly to his knees he placed his head and the vagaries of his left eye (which was for ever trying to dash up and down the vertical surface of the door), 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 of a different colour to his own iron marble, but being, which is more convincing, on the other side of the door.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

“To live at all is miracle enough.”
― Mervyn Peake

“I, while the gods laugh, the world's vortex am;
Maelstrom of passions in that hidden sea
Whose waves of all-time lap the coasts of me;
And in small compass the dark waters cram.”
― Mervyn Peake

“Gormenghast, that is, the main massing of the original stone, taken by itself would have displayed a certain ponderous architectural quality were it possible to have ignored the circumfusion of those mean dwellings that swarmed like an epidemic around its outer walls. They sprawled over the sloping arch, each one half way over its neighbour until, held back by the castle ramparts, the innermost of these hovels laid hold on the great walls, clamping themselves thereto like limpets to a rock. These dwellings, by ancient law, were granted this chill intimacy with the stronghold that loomed above them. Over their irregular roofs would fall throughout the seasons, the shadows of time-eaten buttresses, of broken and lofty turrets, and, most enormous of all, the shadow of the Tower of Flints. 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.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

“He had no longer any need for home, for he carried his Gormenghast within him. All that he sought was jostling within himself. He had grown up. What a boy had set out to seek a man had found, found by the act of living.”
― Mervyn Peake

“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

“With what characters she had filled this lost stage of emptiness! It was here that she would see the people of her imagination, the fierce figures of her making, as they strolled from corner to corner, brooded like monsters or flew through the air like seraphs with burning wings, or danced, or fought, or laughed, or cried. This was her attic of make-believe, where she would watch her mind's companions advancing or retreating across the dusty floor.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

“Are you lishening, my pretty vermin, are you lishening?”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

“Something to remember, that: cats for missiles.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

“It is my cape of good hope, and if it isn't I will probably bite your nose off”
― Mervyn Peake, Mr Pye

“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?”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

“Glorious,' said Steerpike, 'is a dictionary word. 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.”
― Mervyn Peake

“For what use are books to anyone whose days are like a rook's nest with every twig a duty.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

“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, Titus Groan

“The moon slid inexorably into its zenith, the shadows shrivelling to the feet of all that cast them, and as Rantel approached the hollow at the hem of the Twisted Woods he was treading in a pool of his own midnight.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

“He is climbing the spiral staircase of the soul of Gormenghast, bound for some pinnacle of the itching fancy - some wild, invulnerable eyrie best known to himself; where he can watch the world spread out below him, and shake exultantly his clotted wings.”
― Mervyn Peake, Gormenghast

“Take him away. Prepare a feast. Forget nothing. My crown: the golden cutlery. The poison bottles; and the fumes; the wreaths of ivy and the bloody joints; the chains; the bowl of nettles; the spices; the baskets of fresh grass; the skulls and spines; the ribs and shoulder-blades. Forget nothing or, by the blindness of my sockets, I will have your hearts out. Take him away...”
― Mervyn Peake, Boy In Darkness: And Other Stories

“Mount and begone. The world awaits you.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

“Yet not with all of me am I in love. Too much of my own quietness is with me.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

“You are a clever little monster,' said the Doctor, tossing off another cognac and placing the glass upon the table with a click. 'A diabolically clever little monster.' 'That is what I hoped you would realize, Doctor,' said Steerpike. 'But haven't all ambitious people soemthing of the monstrous about them? You, sir, for instance, if you will forgive me, are a little bit monstrous.' 'But, my poor youth, said Prunesquallor, beginning to pace the room, 'there is not the minutest molecule of ambition in my anatomy, monstrous though it may appear to you, ha, ha, ha!”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

“The crumbling castle, looming among the mists, exhaled the season, and every cold stone breathed it out. The tortured trees by the dark lake burned and dripped, their leaves snatched by the wind were whirled in wild circles through the towers. The clouds mouldered as they lay coiled, or shifted themselves uneasily upon the stone skyfield, sending up wreathes that drifted through the turrets and swarmed up hidden walls.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

“Behind him she saw something which by contrast with the alien incalculable figure before her, was close and real. It was something which she understood, something which she could never do without, or be without, for it seemed as though it were her own self, her own body, at which she gazed and which lay so intimately upon the skyline. Gormenghast. The long, notched outline of her home. It was now his background. It was a screen of walls and towers pocked with windows. He stood against it, an intruder, imposing himself so vividly, so solidly, against her world, his head overtopping the loftiest of its towers.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

“As the figure moved before him he followed the muscles as they wove beneath the skin. he was not only fighting with an assailant who was awaiting for that split second in which to strike him dead, but he was stabbing at a masterpiece -- at sculpture that leapt and heaved, at a marvel of inky shadow and silver light. A great wave of nausea surged through him and his knife felt putrid in his hand. His body went on fighting”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

“Glorious,' said Steerpike, 'is a dictionary word. 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. In dead and shackled language, my dears, you *are* glorious, but oh, to give vent to a brand new sounds that might convince you of what I really think of you, as you sit there in your purple splendour, side by side! But no, it is impossible. Life is too fleet for onomatopoeia. Dead words defy me. I can make no sound, dear ladies, that is apt.' 'You could try,' said Clarice. 'We aren't busy.' She smoothed the shining fabric of her dress with her long, lifeless fingers. 'Impossible,' replied the youth, rubbing his chin. 'Quite impossible. Only believe in my admiration for your beauty that will one day be recognized by the whole castle. Meanwhile, preserve all dignity and silent power in your twin bosoms.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

“i am the wilderness lost in man”
― Mervyn Peake

“There was a library and it is ashes. Let its long length assemble. Than its stone walls its paper walls are thicker; armoured with learning, with philosophy, with poetry that drifts or dances clamped though it is in midnight. Shielded with flax and calfskin and a cold weight of ink, there broods the ghost of Sepulchrave, the melancholy Earl, seventy-sixth lord of half-light.”
― Mervyn Peake, Gormenghast

“But there were also times when she cried out in the darkness biting her lips - cried out against the substance of her age: for it was now that she should be young; now above all other times, with the wisdom in her, the wisdom that was frittered away in her 'teens', set aside in her twenties, now, lying there, palpable and with forty summers gone. She clenched her hands together. What good was wisdom; what good was anything when the fawn is fled from the grove?”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Alone

“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

“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, Boy In Darkness: And Other Stories

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

“It was not certain what significance the ceremony held... but the formality was no less sacred for it being unintelligible”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

“Fuchsia took three paces forward in the first of the attics and then paused a moment to retie a string above her knee. Over her head vague rafters loomed and while she straightened herself she noticed them and unconsciously loved them. This was the lumber room. Though very long and lofty it looked relatively smaller than it was, for the fantastic piles of every imaginable kind of thing, from the great organ to the lost and painted head of a broken toy lion that must one day have been the plaything of one of Fuchsia's ancestors, spread from every wall until only an avenue was left to the adjacent room.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

“Irma, my dear sister,' said Prunesquallor, 'I have two things to say. Firstly, why in the name of discomfort are we hanging around in the hall and probably dying of a draught that as far as I'm concerned runs up my right trouser leg and sets my gluteous maximus twtiching; and secondly, what is wrong, when you boil the matter down - with feet? I have always found mine singularly useful, especially for walking with. In fact, ha, ha, ha, one might almost imagine that they have been designed for that very purpose.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

“Or on retiring to Prunesquallors' he might take down one of the Doctor's many books and read, for these days a passion to accumulate knowledge of any and every kind consumed him; but only as a means to an end. He must know all things, for only so might he have, when situations arose in the future, a full pack of cards to play from. He imagined himself occasions when the conversation of one from who he foresaw advancement might turn to astronomy, metaphysics, history, chemistry, or literature, and he realized that to be able to drop into the argument a lucid and exact thought, an opinion based on what might *appear* to be a life-time study, would instantaneously gain more for him than waiting until the conversation turned upon what lay within his scope of experience.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

“Prunesquallor, as urbane as ever, had nevertheless something in his fish-like eyes that might almost be described as determination. One glance at his sister was sufficient to make him realize that to attempt to reason with her would be about as fruitful as to try to christianize a vulture.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

“Of Swelter's acreage, only a perch or two here and there might, if broken, prove vulnerable loam. That he bled profusely could prove little. There was blood in him to revitalize an anaemic army, with enough left over to cool the guns. Placed end to end, his blood vessels might have coiled up the Tower of Flints and half way down again like a Virginia creeper -- a vampire's home from home.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

“She could feel the blood flowing within her and she felt that she must die or break forth into leaves and flowers. It was not passion she felt: not the passion of the body, though that was there, but rather an exultation, a reaching for life, for the whole of the life which she was capable, and in that life which she but dimly divined was centered love, the love for a man. She was not in love with Rantel: she was in love with what he meant to her as someone she could love.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

“He does not listen for an answer, but yawns, his face opening lewdly upon regions compared with which nudity becomes a milliner's invention.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan