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We English are good at forgiving our enemies it releases us from the obligation of liking our friends.

P. D. James

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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
Obligation
Forgiving
English
Releases
Enemy
Liking
Friends
Sarcasm
War
Sarcastic
Good
Enemies
Release

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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.
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When I heard, Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, I thought, Did he fall or was he pushed?
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gossip ... was like any other commodity in the marketplace. You received it only if you had something of value to give.
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You never forget the people who were kind to you in childhood, do you, sir?
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Every island to a child is a treasure island.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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Suicide is the most private and mysterious of acts, inexplicable because the chief actor is never there to explain it.
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What the detective story is about is not murder but the restoration of order.
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Man is diminished if he lives without knowledge of his past without hope of a future he becomes a beast.
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Time didn't heal, but it anesthetized. The human mind could only feel so much.
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Work did bestow dignity, status, meaning. Wasn't that why people dreaded unemployment, why some men found retirement so traumatic?
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There are two options for any society: total prohibition as in a totalitarian state, or total license. Both avoid the ardours of decision. Both have the attraction of certainty. The difficult option is to decide where the line should be drawn and this, surely, is the responsiblity of any civilized and democratic country.
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Human kindness is like a defective tap, the first gush may be impressive but the stream soon dries up.
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Wars may be fought by decent men, but they're not won by them.
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Read widely and with discrimination. Bad writing is contagious.
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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.
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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.
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