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
struggle book wine
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.
men self world
The world is changed not by the self-regarding, but by men and women prepared to make fools of themselves.
couple unhappy proud
There are few couples as unhappy as those who are too proud to admit their unhappiness.
people secret today
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 sell their guilty sexual secrets.
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?
art literature works-of-art
I don't see why escapist literature shouldn't also be a work of art.
believe thinking goes-on
For me, the dead remain dead. If I couldn't believe that, I don't think I could go on living.
inspirational long littles
It's easy to get a reputation for wisdom. It's only necessary to live long, speak little and do less.
struggle compassion air
It was reasonable to struggle, to suffer, perhaps even to die, for a more just, a more compassionate society, but not in a world with no future where, all to soon, the very words "justice," "compassion," "society," "struggle," "evil," would be unheard echoes on an empty air.
fear perfect may
Perfect love may cast our fear, but fear is remarkably potent in casting out love.
inspirational children kids
If from infancy you treat children as gods, they are liable in adulthood to act as devils.
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.