“It was easy to understand how the local legends had grown that sometimes, on an autumn night, once could hear the muffled beat of horses' hoofs as smugglers brought their kegs and bales from Sizewell Gap to hide them in… — P.D. James Copy Share Image
“I was like a little boy showing off my toys, desperate to win approval.” — P.D. James Copy Share Image
“Pleasure need not be less keen because there will be centuries of springs to come, their blossom unseen by human eyes, the walls will… — P.D. James Copy Share Image
“What do you mean by sound government?' Good public order, no corruption in high places, freedom from fear and war and crime, a reasonably… — P.D. James Copy Share Image
“I have enough trouble living with my own neurosis without coping with other people’s.” — P.D. James Copy Share Image
“(A murderer about their victim:) "He was an expert in vicarious death. I should like to have been there to see how he enjoyed… — P.D. James Copy Share Image
“had found it difficult to sleep since my husband had been killed, and now I lay rigid under the canopy of the four-poster re-living the extraordinary day, piecing together the anomalies, the small incidents, the clues, to form a satisfying pattern, trying to impose order on disorder. I think that is what I’ve been wanting to do all my life.… — P.D. James Copy Share
“It had always been a part of his job which he found difficult, the total lack of privacy for the victim. Murder stripped away more than life itself. The body was parceled, labelled, dissected; address books, diaries, confidential letters, every part of the victim's life was sought out and scrutinized. Alien hands moved among the clothes, picked up and examined… — P.D. James Copy Share
“On the whole I’m glad; you can’t mourn for unborn grandchildren when there never was a hope of them. This planet is doomed anyway. Eventually the sun will explode or cool and one small insignificant particle of the universe will disappear with only a tremble. If man is doomed to perish, then universal infertility is as painless a way as… — P.D. James Copy Share
“Dalgliesh was too experienced to assume that fear implied guilt; it was often the most innocent who were the most terrified.” — P.D. James Copy Share Image
“The young seldom lie convincingly. They haven’t had time to practise like the rest of us.” — P.D. James Copy Share Image
“It is doubtful whether Mrs Bennet missed the company of her second daughter, but her husband certainly did. Elizabeth had always been his favourite… — P.D. James Copy Share Image
“She had quickly learned that to show unhappiness was to risk the loss of love.” — P.D. James Copy Share Image
