There are two types of people, you see. One type keep their heads straight, and look around as they walk. The others look up - at the tops of houses, at the eaves and the lintels and the roofs, which can tell you when they were built - and I've always done that. Peter Ackroyd
Oh, I just tend to believe in things when I'm writing them. For instance, when I was writing 'Doctor Dee,' I believed in magic. And when I wrote 'Hawksmoor' I believed in psychic geography. But as soon as I type the last full stop, I'm back to being a complete blank again. Peter Ackroyd
'London' is a gallery of sensation of impressions. It is a history of London in a thematic rather than a chronological sense with chapters of the history of smells, the history of silence, and the history of light. I have described the book as a labyrinth, and in that sense in complements my description of London itself. Peter Ackroyd
It sometimes seems to me that the whole course of English history was one of accident, confusion, chance and unintended consequences - there's no real pattern. Peter Ackroyd
In 'The Plato Papers' I wanted to get another perspective on the present moment by extrapolating into the distant future. So in that sense, there's a definite similarity of purpose between a book set in the future and a book set in the past. Peter Ackroyd
I don't find myself interesting as a person and the details I find boring, quite frankly. You could sum it up in a few words or sentences really: came from nothing. Self-educated. Luck. Energy. Curiosity. Ambition. That's it. Nothing at all can illuminate the work as far as I can tell. Peter Ackroyd
Health, money. That's what people worried about in the 14th century as much as today. I find it so much more interesting than the supposed activities of kings, queens, generals. Peter Ackroyd
The English have always been greedy for news of times past, with that mixture of fatalism and melancholy which is part of the national character. Peter Ackroyd
If I did only one thing at a time I'd think I was wasting my time. If, for example, I only wrote novels I would feel like a charlatan and a fraud. Peter Ackroyd
I saw a ghost once, about 20 years ago. It took the form of someone coming out of a sleeping body and sitting at the foot of the bed. Peter Ackroyd
I can remember picking up weighty tomes on the history of science and the history of philosophy and reading those when I was small. Peter Ackroyd
As a Londoner I was able to see how the world of power and money cast its shadow on those who failed. Peter Ackroyd
There are so many characters whizzing around inside my head, it's like Looney Tunes. But as soon as I've finished writing about them, I completely forget who they are. Peter Ackroyd
There are certain people who seem doomed to buy certain houses. The house expects them. It waits for them. Peter Ackroyd
I think biography can be more personal than fiction, and certainly can be more expressive. Peter Ackroyd
I just wanted to be an ordinary, middle-class person. When I was at Cambridge, I made great efforts to lose the last remnants of my Cockney accent. Peter Ackroyd