P. D. James Quotes

132 Sourced Quotes

Whatever place she called home had to be immaculate before she left, as if this punctiliousness could guarantee that she would return safely.

P. D. James
That was one of the things he deplored about the loss of religion, it meant that people elevated politics into a religious faith and that was dangerous.

P. D. James
The Man Penal settlement. Do you know whats happening there? The murders, the starvation, the complete breakdown of law and order.

P. D. James
It's possible to fight intolerance, stupidity and fanaticism when they come separately. When you get all three together it's probably wiser to get out, if only to preserve your sanity.

P. D. James
The tragedy of loss is not that we grieve, but that we cease to grieve, and then perhaps the dead are dead at last.

P. D. James
There comes a time when every scientist, even God, has to write off an experiment.

P. D. James
If from infancy you treat children as gods they are liable in adulthood to act as devils.

P. D. James
He marveled anew at the infinite variety of marriage, that relationship at once so private and public, so hedged with convention and yet so anarchical.

P. D. James
Man is diminished if he lives without knowledge of his past; without hope of a future he becomes a beast.

P. D. James
If this were fiction, could even the most brilliant novelist contrive to make credible so short a period in which pride had been subdued and prejudice overcome?

P. D. James
Not so much two ships passing in the night as two ships sailing together for a time but always bound for different ports.

P. D. James
The world of the terminally ill is the world of neither the living nor the dead. I have watched others since I watched my father, and always with a sense of their strangeness. They sit and speak, and are spoken to, and listen, and even smile, but in spirit they have already moved away from us and there is no way we can enter their shadowy no-man's-land.

P. D. James
Once you have discovered what is happening, you can't pretend not to know, you can't abdicate responsibility. Knowledge always brings responsibility.

P. D. James
Gabriel has a personality like a hexagon. People need touch only one side for an illusion of closeness.

P. D. James
We all die alone. We shall endure death as once we enjoyed birth. You can't share either experience.

P. D. James
I'm not a tyrant, but I can't afford to be merciful. Whatever it is necessary to do, I will do it.

P. D. James
Darling, you can't promise that... but I like to hear you say it.

P. D. James
Can we ever break free of the devices and desires of our own hearts? Might not our conscience be telling us what we most want to hear?

P. D. James
If our sex life were determined by our first youthful experiments, most of the world would be doomed to celibacy. In no area of human experience are human beings more convinced that something better can be had if only they persevere.

P. D. James
A regime which combines perpetual surveillance with total indulgence is hardly conducive to healthy development.

P. D. James
We live in a society which salves its conscience more by helping the interestingly unfortunate than the dull deserving.

P. D. James
The intention of any novelist must surely be to make that straight avenue to the human heart.

P. D. James
I knew the facts of death before I knew the facts of life. There never was a time when I didn't see the skull beneath the skin.

P. D. James
The world is changed not by the self-regarding, but by men and women prepared to make fools of themselves.

P. D. James
But what do you believe? I don't just mean religion. What are you sure of?" "That once I was not and that now I am. That one day I shall no longer be.

P. D. James
It is surely unreasonable to credit that only one small star in the immensity of the universe is capable of developing and supporting intelligent life. But we shall not get to them and they will not come to us.

P. D. James
Early this morning, 1 January 2021, three minutes after midnight, the last human being to be born on earth was killed in a pub brawl in a suburb of Buenos Aires, aged twenty-five years, two months and twelve days.

P. D. James
I learned early and at that kitchen table that there are ways of avoiding, without guilt, the commitments of love.

P. D. James
Perfect love may cast our fear, but fear is remarkably potent in casting out love.

P. D. James
&You're going to have to, Xan. You may have to kill her, too.

P. D. James