Try an author, a thought, or a phrase in “quotes”.↑ ↓ Navigate · Esc Close

Type a word, saying or author to search.

Browse the library ↗

Then he took the pages, smoothed them with the palm of his hand, and fixed them with pins to the walls. So that now, if he sat looking down upon Grape Street, the letters and images encircled him. And it was while he sat here, scarcely moving, that he was in hell and no one knew it. At such times the future became so clear that it was as if he were remembering it, remembering it in place of the past which he could no longer describe. But there was in any case no future and no past, only the unspeakable misery of his own self.

Then he took the pages, smoothed them with the palm of his hand, and fixed them with pins to the walls. So that now, if he sat looking down upon Grape Street, the letters and images encircled him. And it was while he sat here, scarcely moving, that he was in hell and no one knew it. At such times the future became so clear that it was as if he were remembering it, remembering it in place of the past which he could no longer describe. But there was in any case no future and no past, only the unspeakable misery of his own self.

Approximate author period: c. 1949 AD · modern

Meaning not yet available

An individual explanation has not yet been added. We do not substitute a generic description for an interpretation of these particular words.

Begin with source-checked readings and explanations ↗
Attribution & collection notes
Author or tradition
Peter Ackroyd
Attribution: attributed
Country attributed
Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin.
Historical period
Approximate author period: c. 1949 AD · modern
Approximate author-period anchor from documented birth year 1949; activity date not established; Wikidata Q319169, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q319169 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken.
Recorded source
Contributor-provided quotation collection

Supplied reference C; CSV row 380385; supplied attribution, independently unverified

A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.