P. D. James Quotations

The great tragedy of Alzheimer's disease, and the reason why we dread it, is that it leaves us with no defence, not even against those who love us.

Read widely and with discrimination. Bad writing is contagious.

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

There are few couples as unhappy as those who are too proud to admit their unhappiness.

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.

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 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.

The world is changed not by the self-regarding, but by men and women prepared to make fools of themselves.

A regime which combines perpetual surveillance with total indulgence is hardly conducive to healthy development.

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.