The English can laugh and at the same time strike you down,… - Peter Ackroyd

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The English can laugh and at the same time strike you down, without the least compunction. It is the secret of their success as a nation.

Peter Ackroyd

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About Peter Ackroyd

Peter Ackroyd (born 5 October 1949) is an English novelist, critical biographer, poet and children's writer.

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Ralph Waldo Emerson Oliver Wendell Holmes Benjamin Disraeli Samuel Johnson Elias Canetti

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The smell of the library was always the same – the musty odour of old clothes mixed with the keener scent of unwashed bodies, creating what the chief librarian had once described as "the steam of the social soup".

Only those with great ambitions know what great fears drive them forward.

He had the satisfied countenance of a man who has never succeeded in boring himself.

The English can laugh and at the same time strike you down, without the least compunction. It is the secret of their success as a nation. - Peter Ackroyd

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