P. D. James Quotes - Page 4

Quotes about:

• 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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• 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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• I find it extraordinary that a straightforward if inelegant device for ensuring the survival of the species should involve human beings in such emotional turmoil. Does sex have to be taken so seriously?

  P. D. James

  Sex, Taken, Emotional

  P. D. James (2011). “Devices and Desires”, p.158, Vintage

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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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• A regime which combines perpetual surveillance with total indulgence is hardly conducive to healthy development.

  P. D. James

  Healthy, Development, Surveillance

  P. D. James (2010). “The Children of Men”, p.23, Vintage

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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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• Love, always love. Perhaps that’s what we’re all looking for.

  P. D. James

  Love Always

  P. D. James (2011). “A Certain Justice: An Adam Dalgliesh Novel”, p.420, Ballantine Books

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• History, which interprets the past to understand the present and confront the future is the least rewarding discipline for a dying species.

  P. D. James

  Past, Discipline, Dying

  P. D. James (2008). “The Children of Men”, p.13, 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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• 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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• 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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• Unnatural death always provoked a peculiar unease, an uncomfortable realization that there were still some things that might not be susceptible to bureaucratic control.

  P. D. James

  Peculiar, Realization, Might

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• He didn't want her; he wanted me. Well, you know how it is." Dalgliesh did know. This, after all, was the commonest, the most banal of personal tragedies. You loved someone. They didn't love you. Worse still, in defiance of their own best interests and to the destruction of your peace, they loved another. What would half the world's poets and novelists do without this universal tragicomedy?

  P. D. James

  Love You, Tragedy, Half

  P.D. James (2015). “P. D. James’s Adam Dalgliesh Mysteries: Cover Her Face, A Mind to Murder, Unnatural Causes, Shroud for a Nightingale, The Black Tower, and Death of an Expert Witness”, p.807, Simon and Schuster

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• There comes a time when every scientist, even God, has to write off an experiment.

  P. D. James

  Writing, Learning, Science

  P. D. James (2008). “Devices and Desires”, p.303, Faber & Faber

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• No government can act in advance of the moral will of the people.

  P. D. James

  Government, People, Moral

  P. D. James (2010). “The Children of Men”, p.94, Vintage

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