Home > Author > P.D. James
141 " We should not, perhaps, assume that nature has a purpose. "
― P.D. James , The Children of Men
142 " We need, all of us, to be in control of our lives, and we shrink them until they're small and mean enough so that we feel in control. "
― P.D. James , Devices and Desires (Adam Dalgliesh #8)
143 " This planet is doomed anyway. Eventually the sun will explode or cool and one small insignificant particle of the universe will disappear with only a tremble. "
144 " Even as a child, I had a sense that I was two people; the one who experienced the trauma, the pain, the happiness, and the other who stood aside and watched with a disinterested ironic eye. "
― P.D. James , Time to Be in Earnest: A Fragment of Autobiography
145 " They had lived to see their simple patriotism derided, their morality despised, their savings devalued. They caused no trouble. Millions of pounds of public money wasn’t regularly siphoned into their neighbourhoods in the hope of bribing, cajoling or coercing them into civic virtue. If they protested that their cities had become alien, their children taught in overcrowded schools where 90 per cent of the children spoke no English, they were lectured about the cardinal sin of racism by those more expensively and comfortably circumstanced. Unprotected by accountants, they were the milch-cows of the rapacious Revenue. No lucrative industry of social concern and psychological analysis had grown up to analyse and condone their inadequacies on the grounds of deprivation or poverty. "
― P.D. James , The Private Patient (Adam Dalgliesh, #14)
146 " I love you, Guy, and I think I shall go on loving you, but I’m not in love. I’ve had that and it was a torment, a humiliation and a warning. So now I’m settling for a quiet life with someone I respect and am very fond of and want to spend my life with. "
― P.D. James , The Lighthouse (Adam Dalgliesh #13)
147 " impresionante "
― P.D. James , A Certain Justice (Adam Dalgliesh, #10)
148 " o’clock "
― P.D. James , Unnatural Causes (Adam Dalgliesh #3)
149 " I had to make a moral decision. 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 , Shroud for a Nightingale (Adam Dalgliesh #4)
150 " Pleasure need not be less keen because there will be centuries of springs to come, their blossom unseen by human eyes, the walls will crumble, the trees die and rot, the gardens revert to weeds and grass, because all beauty will outlive the human intelligence which records, enjoys and celebrates it. "
151 " «No hay un arte que descubra en un rostro la construcción de un alma. Fue un caballero en quien depositamos la más absoluta confianza.» "
152 " Sale "
153 " Dictating condolences to the mother of a murdered husband whom you’ve been busily cuckolding for the last three years would take more than his limited social vocabulary. "
― P.D. James , A Taste for Death (Adam Dalgliesh, #7)
154 " ...Miss Bingley was particularly anxious at the time not to leave the capital. Her pursuit of a widowed peer of great wealth was entering a most hopeful phase. Admittedly without his peerage and his money he would have been regarded as the most boring man in London, but one cannot expect to be called "your grace" without some inconvenience. "
― P.D. James , Death Comes to Pemberley
155 " [Mr. Collins] began by stating that he could find no words to express his shock and abhorrence, and then proceeded to find a great number, few of them appropriate and none of them helpful. "
156 " ridiculous, "
― P.D. James , Original Sin (Adam Dalgliesh #9)
157 " But gratitude can be the very devil sometimes, particularly if you have to be grateful for services you’d rather be without. "
― P.D. James , The Black Tower (Adam Dalgliesh #5)
158 " Charlotte had not been the eldest of a large family without acquiring some skill in the management of male delinquencies and her method with her husband was ingenious. She consistently congratulated him on qualities that he did not possess in the hope that, flattered by her praise and approval, he would acquire them. "
159 " He still attended every Sunday. It was as much a part of his routine as buying the same two Sunday newspapers at the same stall on his way home, the luncheon taken from the fridge and heated up in obedience to Erik’s written instructions, the short afternoon walk through the park, then the hour of sleep and the evening of television. The "
160 " Good. I do dislike discussing wine longer than I need. "