Quote

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

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
Even
Experiments
Every
Scientist
Time
Discovery
Learning
Comes
Science
Write
Writing
Experiment

More quotes by P. D. James

Image
When I heard, Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, I thought, Did he fall or was he pushed?
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
however long we have to live, there are never enough springs.
P. D. James
Image
we can forgive anything as long as it isn't done to us.
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
What a child doesn't receive he can seldom later give.
P. D. James
Image
I don't see why escapist literature shouldn't also be a work of art.
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
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
You never forget the people who were kind to you in childhood, do you, sir?
P. D. James
Image
Murder is the unique crime, the only one for which we can never make reparation to the victim.
P. D. James
Image
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
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
A man who lives with nature is used to violence and is companionable with death. There is more violence in an English hedgerow than in the meanest streets of a great city.
P. D. James
Image
It is difficult to be generous-minded to those we have greatly harmed.
P. D. James
Image
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.
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
All these problems [deciding cases] are easier for people who believe in God. Those of us who don't or can't have to do the best we can. That's what the law is, the best we can do. Human justice is imperfect, but it's the only justice we have.
P. D. James
Image
gossip ... was like any other commodity in the marketplace. You received it only if you had something of value to give.
P. D. James