P.D. James

“I was like a little boy showing off my toys, desperate to win approval.”

— P.D. James

“Pleasure need not be less keen because there will be centuries of springs to come, their blossom unseen by human eyes, the…

— P.D. James

“What do you mean by sound government?' Good public order, no corruption in high places, freedom from fear and war and crime,…

— P.D. James

“I have enough trouble living with my own neurosis without coping with other people’s.”

— P.D. James

“(A murderer about their victim:) "He was an expert in vicarious death. I should like to have been there to see how…

— P.D. James

“had found it difficult to sleep since my husband had been killed, and now I lay rigid under the canopy of the…

— P.D. James

“It had always been a part of his job which he found difficult, the total lack of privacy for the victim. Murder…

— P.D. James

“On the whole I’m glad; you can’t mourn for unborn grandchildren when there never was a hope of them. This planet is…

— P.D. James

“Dalgliesh was too experienced to assume that fear implied guilt; it was often the most innocent who were the most terrified.”

— P.D. James

“The young seldom lie convincingly. They haven’t had time to practise like the rest of us.”

— P.D. James

“It is doubtful whether Mrs Bennet missed the company of her second daughter, but her husband certainly did. Elizabeth had always been…

— P.D. James

“She had quickly learned that to show unhappiness was to risk the loss of love.”

— P.D. James

“You won't get love from a child if you don't give love.”

— P.D. James

“Beauty is intellectually confusing; it sabotages common sense.”

— P.D. James

“It is never so difficult to congratulate a friend on her good fortune than when that fortune appears undeserved.”

— P.D. James

“Neighbors whose jealousy of such a triumph exceeded any satisfaction in the prospect of the union were able to console themselves by…

— P.D. James

“The very old, he thought, make our past. Once they go it seems for a moment that neither it nor we have…

— P.D. James

“The English, thought Kate, obviously regarded praying much as they did a necessary physical function, something best done in private. Dalgliesh apologized…

— P.D. James

“All the motives for murder are covered by four Ls: Love, Lust, Lucre and Loathing.”

— P.D. James

“There is much that I remember but which is painful to dwell on. I see no need to write about these things.…

— P.D. James

“The New World is not a refuge for the indolent, the criminal, the undesirable of the old, but a young man who…

— P.D. James

“Like all religious evangelists, she realizes that there is little satisfaction in the contemplation of heaven for oneself if one cannot simultaneously…

— P.D. James

“If you decide to do without a personal god it's illogical to saddle yourself with a legacy of JudeoChristian sin. That way…

— P.D. James

“Good. I do dislike discussing wine longer than I need.”

— P.D. James

“Neither man spoke of the past. Darcy could not rid himself of its power but Wickham lived for the moment, was sanguine…

— P.D. James