128 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.

History, which interprets the past to understand the present and confront the future is the least rewarding discipline for a dying species.

It is surely unreasonable to credit that only one small star in the immensity of the universe is capable of developing and supporting intelligent life. But we shall not get to them and they will not come to us.

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

We are often more merciful to our animals [cats] than we are to each other.

The secret of contentment is never to allow yourself to want anything which reason tells you you haven't a chance of getting.

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.

He didn't want her; he wanted me. Well, you know how it is." Dalgliesh did know. This, after all, was the commonest, the most banal of personal tragedies. You loved someone. They didn't love you. Worse still, in defiance of their own best interests and to the destruction of your peace, they loved another. What would half the world's poets and novelists do without this universal tragicomedy?

If from infancy you treat children as gods, they are liable in adulthood to act as devils.