Quotes from P. D. James

It was one of those perfect English autumnal days which occur more frequently in memory than in life.

I believe that political correctness can be a form of linguistic fascism, and it sends shivers down the spine of my generation who went to war against fascism.

Wars may be fought by decent men, but they're not won by them.

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.

What a child doesn't receive he can seldom later give.

The equally is a political theory, but no a practical politics.

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.

No government can act in advance of the moral will of the people.

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.

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.

I can understand the poor and stupid voting for Marxism or one of its fashionable variants. If you've no hope of being other than a slave, you may as well opt for the most efficient form of slavery.

It's easy to get a reputation for wisdom. It's only necessary to live long, speak little and do less.

Increase your word power. Words are the raw material of our craft.

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?

Human kindness is like a defective tap, the first gush may be impressive but the stream soon dries up.

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.

We who write in English are fortunate to have the richest and most versatile language in the world. Respect it.

What the detective story is about is not murder but the restoration of order.

We can experience nothing but the present moment, live in no other second of time, and to understand this is as close as we can get to eternal life.

I knew the facts of death before I knew the facts of life. There never was a time when I didn't see the skull beneath the skin.

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.

Daniel supposed he had a secret life. Most people did; it was hardly possible to live without one.

If all power corrupts, then a doctor, who literally holds life and death in his hands, must be at particular risk.

Most of my life I have needed more time to be on my own.