P.D. James Quotes

74 quotes in 1078 categories

• We English are good at forgiving our enemies; it releases us from the obligation of liking our friends.
• We are often more merciful to our animals [cats] than we are to each other.
• There comes a time when every scientist, even God, has to write off an experiment.
• Most of my life I have needed more time to be on my own.
• Publishers don't nurse you; they buy and sell you.
• 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…
• The weekend break had begun with the usual resentment and had continued with half-repressed ill humour. It was, of course, his fault. He had been…
• I still occasionally need to struggle but I now fear it less. The weapons I fight it with are also my consolations: books, music, food,…
• Generosity is a virtue for individuals, not governments. When governments are generous it is with other people’s money, other people’s safety, other people’s future.
• The equally is a political theory, but no a practical politics.
• A regime which combines perpetual surveillance with total indulgence is hardly conducive to healthy development.
• The world is changed not by the self-regarding, but by men and women prepared to make fools of themselves.
• I don't think writers choose the genre, the genre chooses us. I wrote out of the wish to create order out of disorder, the liking…
• A man who lives with nature is used to violence and is companionable with death. There is more violence in an English hedgerow than in…
• Great literature cannot grow from a neglected or impoverished soil. Only if we actually tend or care will it transpire that every hundred years or…
• 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…
• Of the four billion life forms which have existed on this planet, three billion, nine hundred and sixty million are now extinct. We don't know…
• In 1930s mysteries, all sorts of motives were credible which aren't credible today, especially motives of preventing guilty sexual secrets from coming out. Nowadays, people…
• There are few couples as unhappy as those who are too proud to admit their unhappiness.
• Don't just plan to write - write. It is only by writing, not dreaming about it, that we develop our own style.

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