The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy

by Mervyn Peake

And he gave a ghastly mirthless laugh like something rusty being scraped by a knife.

This realization that grown-ups did not necessarily know any more than children was something against which she had fought.

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.

For every key position in the Castle there was the apprentice, either the son or the student, bound to secrecy. Centuries of experience had seen to it that there should be no gap in the steady, intricate stream of immemorial behaviour.