Quote

Open your mind to new experiences, particularly to the study of other ­people. Nothing that happens to a writer – however happy, however tragic – is ever wasted.

P. D. James

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

P. D. James
Age: 94 †
Born: 1920
Born: August 3
Died: 2014
Died: November 27
Member Of The House Of Lords
Novelist
Politician
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Phyllis Dorothy James
Phyllis Dorothy James
Baroness James of Holland Park
Phyllis James
Baroness Phyllis Dorothy James
Study
Open
Happy
Wasted
Happens
Tragic
Ever
Particularly
Nothing
Experiences
Mind
However
People
Writer

More quotes by P. D. James

Image
Wars may be fought by decent men, but they're not won by them.
P. D. James
Image
I believe that political correctness can be a form of linguistic fascism . . . The only way to react is to get up in the morning and start the day by saying four or five vastly politically incorrect things before breakfast!
P. D. James
Image
If from infancy you treat children as gods, they are liable in adulthood to act as devils.
P. D. James
Image
If this were fiction, could even the most brilliant novelist contrive to make credible so short a period in which pride had been subdued and prejudice overcome?
P. D. James
Image
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?
P. D. James
Image
Creativity doesn't flourish in an atmosphere of despotism, coercion and fear.
P. D. James
Image
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.
P. D. James
Image
First-class travel, provided one hasn't to pay for it oneself, is the most insidiously addictive of life's luxuries.
P. D. James
Image
read widely, not in order to copy someone else's style, but to learn to appreciate and recognize good writing and to see how the best writers have achieved their result. Poor writing is, unfortunately, infectious and should be avoided.
P. D. James
Image
We English are good at forgiving our enemies it releases us from the obligation of liking our friends.
P. D. James
Image
People were excited by violence. What, after all, was the sexual act but a voluntarily endured assault, a momentary death?
P. D. James
Image
Generosity is a virtue for individuals, not governments. When governments are generous it is with other people’s money, other people’s safety, other people’s future.
P. D. James
Image
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.
P. D. James
Image
No literary form is more revealing, more spontaneous or more individual than a letter.
P. D. James
Image
The greatest mystery of all is the human heart.
P. D. James
Image
The modern holy trinity is money, sex and celebrity.
P. D. James
Image
In youth we take egregious risks because death has no reality for us. Youth goes caparisoned in immortality. It is only in middle age that we are shadowed by the awareness of the transitoriness of life.
P. D. James
Image
Increase your word power. Words are the raw material of our craft. The greater your vocabulary the more ­effective your writing. We who write in English are fortunate to have the richest and most versatile language in the world. Respect it.
P. D. James
Image
What a child doesn't receive he can seldom later give.
P. D. James
Image
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