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My Great Fear Has Always Been Complete And Utter Failure. Hence, You See, All The Dispossessed People In My Fiction, And Why I Try To Earn As Much Money As I Can. It's A Defense. I Don't Enjoy It Or Do Anything With It.

-Peter Ackroyd

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My Great Fear Has

Peter Ackroyd

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My Great Fear Has Always Been Complete And Utter Failure. Hence, You See, All The Dispossessed People In My Fiction, And Why I Try To Earn As Much Money As I Can. It's A Defense. I Don't Enjoy It Or Do Anything With It.

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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.

The 16th-century Theatre Witnessed The Particularly English Manifestation Of 'the History Play.' There Can Be No Doubt That Shakespeare's Presentations Of 'henry V' And 'richard Iii' Have Been Incalculably More Influential Than Any More Sober Historical Study.

Sometimes The Silences, The Gaps, Tell Us More Than Anything Else.

What Captivity Has Been To The Jews, Exile Has Been To The Irish. For Us, The Romance Of Our Native Land Begins Only After We Have Left Home; It Is Really Only With Other People That We Become Irishmen.

No Poet Is Ever Completely Lost. He Has The Secret Of His Childhood Safe With Him, Like Some Secret Cave In Which He Can Kneel. And, When We Read His Poetry, We Can Join Him There.

One Can Forgive Shakespeare Anything, Except One's Own Bad Lines.

I Don't Know If I Have A Voice Of My Own. I Don't See Me Being An Important Person With Something To Say. I Haven't. I've Got Nothing To Say. My Opinion Is Of No Consequence Or Value.

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I Enjoyed Reading And Learning At School, And At University I Enjoyed Extending My Reading And Learning. Once I Left Cambridge, I Went To Yale As A Fellow. I Spent Two Years There. After That, George Gale Made Me Literary Editor Of 'the Spectator.

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I Had To Paraphrase The Paraphrase.

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