Titus Alone Quotes

“The sun sank with a sob and darkness waded in from all horizons so that the sky contracted and there was no more light left in the world, when, at this very moment of annihilation, the moon, as though she had been waiting for her cue, sailed up the night.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Alone

“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

“There is no calm for those who are uprooted. They are wanderers, homesick and defiant. Love itself is helpless to heal them though the dust rises with every footfall - drifts down the corridors - settles on branch or cornice - each breath an inhalation from the past so that the lungs, like a miner's, are dark with bygone times.

Whatever they eat, whatever they drink, is never the bread of home or the corn of their own valleys. It is never the wine of their own vineyards. It is a foreign brew.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Alone

“You were going to.’ ‘To what?’ ‘To exalt yourself.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Alone

“How could they ever know, these self-incarcerated rebels; these thieves and refugees?”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Alone

“Once there were islands all a-sprout with palms: and coral reefs and sands as white as milk. What is there now but a vast shambles of the heart? Filth, squalor, and a world of little men.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Alone

“Where in this forest of legs could she be with her beautiful little face contorted and discoloured? Everything had gone wrong.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Alone

“Good-bye, my friend. Look after her. She is all heart.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Alone

“We will away and find them. We’ll lay their ghosts, my dear.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Alone

“The past. Yes, that is it. I need my past again. Without it I am nothing. I bob like a cork on deep water.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Alone

“How could they ever know, these self-incarcerated rebels; these thieves and refugees? Yet they talked of little else but the flight and where they might be. Their talk was nothing but conjecture, and could get them nowhere, yet it provided almost a reason for living.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Alone

“You beast,’ she cried. ‘You ungrateful beast. Am I nothing in myself that you desert me? Is coupling so important? There are a million lovers making love in a million ways, but there is only one of me.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Alone

“There was no adventure in his bones. All about him the dawn was like a sickness.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Alone

“What a face you have,’ said Titus. ‘It’s paradise on edge.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Alone

“I have deserted Juno.’ ‘Deserted her?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘It had to happen. She is too good for males.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Alone

“Are these the colours of the sky tonight? Do you pay, my dears, to see the sunset? Ain’t the sunset free? Good God, ain’t even the sunset free?’ ‘It’s all we have,’ said a voice, ‘that, and the dawn.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Alone

“Your features are the mountains of the moon. Lions and tigers lie bleeding in your brain.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Alone

“or the yelling of a chordless throat.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Alone

“I hate men,’ says Mrs Zed. ‘You included.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Alone

“That I have come to you through a hole in the floor is nothing.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Alone

“You will come back,’ she had said. ‘All roads lead back to Gormenghast’; and he yearned suddenly for his home, for the bad of it no less than for the good of it – yearned for the smell of it and the taste of the bitter ivy.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Alone

“Why are you telling me all this?’ said Titus. ‘I am not telling you anything. I am telling myself. My voice, strident to others, is music to me.’ ‘You have a rough manner,’ said Titus. ‘But you have saved me twice. Why are you helping me?’ ‘I have no idea,’ said Muzzlehatch. ‘There must be something wrong with my brain.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Alone

“But that is as it should be!’ cried Kestrel, his eyes swimming over with excitement, ‘for life must be various, incongruous, vile and electric. Life must be ruthless and as full of love as may be found in a jaguar’s fang.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Alone

“You are somewhat divine,’ whispered Kestrel, addressing Mrs Grass.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Alone

“Cold love’s the loveliest love of all. So clear, so crisp, so empty. In short, so civilized.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Alone

“Thank heavens it’s all over now.’ ‘What is?’ ‘My youth. It took too long and got in my way.’ ‘In your way, Mr Thirst? How do you mean?’ ‘It went on for so long,’ said Thirst. ‘I had about thirty years of it. You know what I mean. Experiment, experiment, experiment. And now …”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Alone

“You are a travesty,’ said Titus, ‘and when you die the earth will breathe again.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Alone

“I am a beggar,’ it said, and the soft grit of its dreadful voice sent Titus’ heart into his mouth. ‘That is why I am stretching out my withered arm. Do you see it? Eh? Would you call it beautiful with that claw at the end of it – can you see it?”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Alone

“There is no point in erecting a structure,’ said Muzzlehatch, taking no notice of Titus’ question, ‘unless someone else pulls it down. There is no value in a rule until it is broken. There is nothing in life unless there is death at the back of it. Death, dear boy, leaning over the edge of the world and grinning like a boneyard.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Alone

“Whether or not his home was true or false, existent or nonexistent, there was no time for metaphysics. 'Let them tell me later,' he thought to himself, 'whether I am dead or not; sane or not; now is the time for action.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Alone