Quotes by P.D. James

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

“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 ...”

“Not so much two ships passing in the night as two ships sailing together for a time but always bound for different ports.”

“Time didn't heal, but it anesthetized. The human mind could only feel so much.”

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

“People were excited by violence. What, after all, was the sexual act but a voluntarily endured assault, a momentary death?”

“Every island to a child is a treasure island.”

“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 b...”

“I learned early and at that kitchen table that there are ways of avoiding, without guilt, the commitments of love.”

“What do you mean by sound government?'Good public order, no corruption in high places, freedom from fear and war and crime, a reasonably equitable distribution of wealth and resources, concern for ...”

“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," "compas...”

“Learn to write by doing it. Read widely and wisely. Increase your word power. Find your own individual voice though practicing constantly. Go through the world with your eyes and ears open and lear...”

“All Jane Austen novels have a common storyline: an attractive and virtuous young woman surmounts difficulties to achieve marriage to the man of her choice. This is the age-long convention of the ro...”

“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 bette...”

“I dont think He bargains.Oh yes He does. I may not be religious but I know my Bible. My mother saw to that. He bargains all right. But Hes supposed to he just. If He wants belief Hed better provide...”

“You won't get love from a child if you don't give love.”

“The city which lay below was a charnel house built on multi-layered bones centuries older than those which lay beneath the cities of Hamburg or Dresden. Was this knowledge part of the mystery it he...”

“Our parents' generation carried the past memorialized in paint, porcelain, and wood; we cast it off. Even our national history is remembered in terms of the worst we did, not the best.”

“The television image sanctified, conferred identity. The more familiar the face, the more to be trusted. ”

“He was discovering that even hatred died a little at the end. But it still lasted longer than desire, longer even than love.”