P. D. James Quotes - Page 4

Quotes about:

• 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 only if they persevere.

  P. D. James

  Sex, World, Firsts

  FaceBook post by P.D. James from Apr 30, 2013

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• Charm is always genuine; it may be superficial but it isn't false.

  P. D. James

  May, Superficial, Charm

  P. D. James (2010). “The Children of Men”, p.26, Vintage

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• Feel, he told himself, feel, feel, feel. Even if what you feel is pain, only let yourself feel.

  P. D. James

  Life, Pain, Broken

  FaceBook post by P.D. James from Apr 12, 2013

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• Wars may be fought by decent men, but they're not won by them.

  P. D. James

  War, Men, May

  P. D. James (2008). “A Taste for Death”, p.336, Faber & Faber

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• A letter is paradoxically the most revealing and the most deceptive of confessional revelations. We all have our inconsistencies, prejudices, irrationalities which, although strongly felt at the time, may be transitory. A letter captures the mood of the moment. The transitory becomes immutably fixed, part of the evidence for the prosecution or the defence.

  P. D. James

  Prejudice, Letters, May

  P. D. James (2007). “Time to Be in Earnest”, p.85, Vintage

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• 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, wine, nature.

  P. D. James

  Struggle, Book, Wine

  P. D. James (2010). “The Children of Men”, p.20, Vintage

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• Metaphysical speculation is about as pointless as a discussion on the meaning of one's lungs. They're for breathing.

  P. D. James

  Breathing, Metaphysical, Speculation

  P. D. James (1984). “Trilogy of Death: Three Complete Novels”, Scribner Book Company

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• read widely, not in order to copy someone else's style, but to learn to appreciate and recognize good writing and to see how the best writers have achieved their result. Poor writing is, unfortunately, infectious and should be avoided.

  P. D. James

  Writing, Order, Appreciate

  P. D. James (2011). “Time to Be in Earnest”, p.292, Faber & Faber

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• The secret of contentment is never to allow yourself to want anything which reason tells you you haven't a chance of getting.

  P. D. James

  Secret, Contentment, Want

  P.D. James (2015). “P. D. James’s Cordelia Gray Mysteries: An Unsuitable Job for a Woman and The Skull Beneath the Skin”, p.192, Simon and Schuster

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• 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

  Stars, Intelligent, Credit

  P. D. James (2010). “The Children of Men”, p.14, Vintage

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• Ambition, if it were to be savored, let alone achieved, had to be rooted in possibility.

  P. D. James

  Ambition, Possibility, Rooted

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• Without the hope of posterity, for our race if not for ourselves, without the assurance that we being dead yet live, all pleasures of the mind and senses sometimes seem to me no more than pathetic and crumbling defences shored up against our ruin.

  P. D. James

  Race, Mind, Ruins

  P. D. James (2010). “The Children of Men”, p.21, Vintage

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• 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

  Morning, Years, Two

  P. D. James (2010). “The Children of Men”, p.12, Vintage

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• Daniel supposed he had a secret life. Most people did; it was hardly possible to live without one.

  P. D. James

  People, Secret, Secret Life

  FaceBook post by P.D. James from Jul 27, 2016

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• 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 more ready to hurt his wife's feelings and deprive his daughter than inconvenience a pub bar full of strangers. He wished there could be one memory of his dead child which wasn't tainted with guilt and regret.

  P. D. James

  Daughter, Hurt, Children

  P. D. James (2010). “The Children of Men”, p.101, Vintage

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• I don't want anyone to look to me, not for protection, not for happiness, not for love, not for anything.

  P. D. James

  Looks, Want, Protection

  P. D. James (2010). “The Children of Men”, p.43, Vintage

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• I believe that political correctness can be a form of linguistic fascism . . . The only way to react is to get up in the morning and start the day by saying four or five vastly politically incorrect things before breakfast!

  P. D. James

  Morning, Believe, Political

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• No literary form is more revealing, more spontaneous or more individual than a letter.

  P. D. James

  Letters, Spontaneous, Individual

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• The great tragedy of Alzheimer's disease, and the reason why we dread it, is that it leaves us with no defence, not even against those who love us.

  P. D. James

  Alzheimer's, Tragedy, Disease

  P. D. James (2007). “Time to Be in Earnest”, p.240, Vintage

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• There are two options for any society: total prohibition as in a totalitarian state, or total license. Both avoid the ardours of decision. Both have the attraction of certainty. The difficult option is to decide where the line should be drawn and this, surely, is the responsiblity of any civilized and democratic country.

  P. D. James

  Country, Two, Decision

  P. D. James (2011). “Time to Be in Earnest”, p.104, Faber & Faber

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• 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

  Father, Men, Land

  P. D. James (2010). “The Children of Men”, p.41, Vintage

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• Childhood is the one prison from which there's no escape, the one sentence from which there's no appeal. We all serve our time.

  P. D. James

  Childhood, Prison, Appeals

  P.D. James (2012). “Innocent Blood”, p.201, Simon and Schuster

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• you'd like the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. That must be the most futile oath anyone ever swears.

  P. D. James

  Nothing But The Truth, Oath, Swear

  P. D. James (2008). “The Lighthouse”, p.203, Faber & Faber

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• There is no point in regretting any part of the past. The past can't now be altered, the future has yet to be lived, and consciously to experience every moment of the present is the only way to gain at least the illusion of immortality.

  P. D. James

  Regret, Past, Way

  P. D. James (2011). “Time to Be in Earnest”, p.56, Faber & Faber

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• Perhaps it's only when people are dead that we can safely show how much we cared about them. We know that it's too late then for them to do anything about it.

  P. D. James

  People, Too Late, Shows

  FaceBook post by P.D. James from Sep 30, 2011

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