Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
No literary form is more revealing, more spontaneous or more individual than a letter.
P. D. James
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
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
Individual
Form
Revealing
Spontaneous
Letter
Literary
Letters
More quotes by P. D. James
But what do you believe? I don't just mean religion. What are you sure of? That once I was not and that now I am. That one day I shall no longer be.
P. D. James
gossip ... was like any other commodity in the marketplace. You received it only if you had something of value to give.
P. D. James
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
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
Creativity doesn't flourish in an atmosphere of despotism, coercion and fear.
P. D. James
The tragedy of loss is not that we grieve, but that we cease to grieve, and then perhaps the dead are dead at last.
P. D. James
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
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
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
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
It is difficult to be generous-minded to those we have greatly harmed.
P. D. James
You never forget the people who were kind to you in childhood, do you, sir?
P. D. James
If from infancy you treat children as gods, they are liable in adulthood to act as devils.
P. D. James
We English are good at forgiving our enemies it releases us from the obligation of liking our friends.
P. D. James
The greatest mystery of all is the human heart.
P. D. James
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
What a child doesn't receive he can seldom later give.
P. D. James
Work did bestow dignity, status, meaning. Wasn't that why people dreaded unemployment, why some men found retirement so traumatic?
P. D. James
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
What the detective story is about is not murder but the restoration of order.
P. D. James
