P. D. James
P. D. James
Phyllis Dorothy James, Baroness James of Holland Park, OBE, FRSA, FRSL, known as P. D. James, was an English crime writer. She rose to fame for her series of detective novels starring police commander and poet Adam Dalgliesh...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth3 August 1920
letters spontaneous individual
No literary form is more revealing, more spontaneous or more individual than a letter.
judgement may matter
It is always easy to question the judgement of others in matters of which we may be imperfectly informed.
secret contentment want
The secret of contentment is never to allow yourself to want anything which reason tells you you haven't a chance of getting.
loneliness more-time needed
Most of my life I have needed more time to be on my own.
fighting stupidity together
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.
unique murder crime
Murder is the unique crime, the only one for which we can never make reparation to the victim.
successful feelings done
the most successful marriages were always based on both partners feeling that they had done rather well for themselves.
father men land
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.
commitment kitchen guilt
I learned early and at that kitchen table that there are ways of avoiding, without guilt, the commitments of love.
love-always
Love, always love. Perhaps that’s what we’re all looking for.
raw-materials crafts increase
Increase your word power. Words are the raw material of our craft.
kindness may firsts
Human kindness is like a defective tap, the first gush may be impressive but the stream soon dries up.
healthy development surveillance
A regime which combines perpetual surveillance with total indulgence is hardly conducive to healthy development.
father equality skills
[My father and his friends] believed in equality for women without troubling to acquire the basic domestic skills which would have made that equality possible.