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
thinking order wish
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 of a pattern.
thinking insulting sin
If you are proposing to commit a sin it is as well to commit it with intelligence. Otherwise you are insulting God as well as defying Him, don't you think?
believe mean one-day
But what do you believe? I don't just mean religion. What are you sure of?" "That once I was not and that now I am. That one day I shall no longer be.
people too-late shows
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.
book reading pleasure
Books of quotations ... afford me one of the most undemanding but satisfying forms of reading pleasure.
may moments superficial
Charm is often despised but I can never see why. No one has it who isn't capable of genuinely liking others, at least at the actual moment of meeting and speaking. Charm is always genuine; it may be superficial but it isn't false.
school people childhood
I wonder if childhood is ever really happy. Just as well, perhaps. To be blissfully happy so young would leave one always seeking to recapture the unobtainable. Like those people who were always happiest at school or university. Always going back. No reunion ever missed. It always seemed to me rather pathetic.
may superficial genuine
Charm is always genuine; it may be superficial but it isn't false.
past discipline dying
History, which interprets the past to understand the present and confront the future is the least rewarding discipline for a dying species.
men past beast
Man is diminished if he lives without knowledge of his past; without hope of a future he becomes a beast.
believe politician humbug
A politician is required to listen to humbug, talk humbug, condone humbug. The most we can hope for is that we don't actually believe it.
believe law people
All these problems [deciding cases] are easier for people who believe in God. Those of us who don't or can't have to do the best we can. That's what the law is, the best we can do. Human justice is imperfect, but it's the only justice we have.