Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
Creativity doesn't flourish in an atmosphere of despotism, coercion and fear.
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
Flourish
Despotism
Atmosphere
Creativity
Fear
Doesn
Coercion
More quotes by P. D. James
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
Great literature cannot grow from a neglected or impoverished soil. Only if we actually tend or care will it transpire that every hundred years or so we might get a Middlemarch.
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
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.
P. D. James
No literary form is more revealing, more spontaneous or more individual than a letter.
P. D. James
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
The modern holy trinity is money, sex and celebrity.
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
Suicide is the most private and mysterious of acts, inexplicable because the chief actor is never there to explain it.
P. D. James
Time didn't heal, but it anesthetized. The human mind could only feel so much.
P. D. James
A regime which combines perpetual surveillance with total indulgence is hardly conducive to healthy development.
P. D. James
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 be superficial but it isn't false.
P. D. James
We English are good at forgiving our enemies it releases us from the obligation of liking our friends.
P. D. James
It's possible to fight intolerance, stupidity and fanaticism when they come separately. When you get all three together it's probably wiser to get out, if only to preserve your sanity.
P. D. James
Charm is always genuine it may be superficial but it isn't false.
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
What the detective story is about is not murder but the restoration of order.
P. D. James
It shows considerable wisdom to know what you want in life and then to direct all your energies towards getting it.
P. D. James
Read widely and with discrimination. Bad writing is contagious.
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