I don't want anyone to look to me, not for protection, not for happiness, not for love, not for anything. P. D. James More Quotes by P. D. James More Quotes From 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 tragedy loss grieving There is no point in regretting any part of the past. The past can't now be altered, the future has yet to be lived, and consciously to experience every moment of the present is the only way to gain at least the illusion of immortality. P. D. James regret way past There are two options for any society: total prohibition as in a totalitarian state, or total license. Both avoid the ardours of decision. Both have the attraction of certainty. The difficult option is to decide where the line should be drawn and this, surely, is the responsiblity of any civilized and democratic country. P. D. James decision two country A letter is paradoxically the most revealing and the most deceptive of confessional revelations. We all have our inconsistencies, prejudices, irrationalities which, although strongly felt at the time, may be transitory. A letter captures the mood of the moment. The transitory becomes immutably fixed, part of the evidence for the prosecution or the defence. P. D. James prejudice letters may It is difficult to be generous-minded to those we have greatly harmed. P. D. James generous difficult A picnic may well be a metaphor for life. The essentials for happiness are the right company, moderate if sanguine expectations and a reasonable standard of physical sustenance and comfort, the whole being bedeviled by the belief that there is always something better to be had if only one presses on. P. D. James essentials expectations comfort A regime which combines perpetual surveillance with total indulgence is hardly conducive to healthy development. P. D. James surveillance healthy development I believe that political correctness can be a form of linguistic fascism . . . The only way to react is to get up in the morning and start the day by saying four or five vastly politically incorrect things before breakfast! P. D. James political morning believe Perhaps it's only when people are dead that we can safely show how much we cared about them. We know that it's too late then for them to do anything about it. P. D. James shows too-late people A nation that can't remember its dead will soon cease to be worth dying for. P. D. James nations dying remember The world of the terminally ill is the world of neither the living nor the dead. I have watched others since I watched my father, and always with a sense of their strangeness. They sit and speak, and are spoken to, and listen, and even smile, but in spirit they have already moved away from us and there is no way we can enter their shadowy no-man’s-land. P. D. James land men father Old age makes caricatures of us all. P. D. James old-age caricatures age Of all the things that human beings did together, the sexual act was the one with the most various of reasons. P. D. James humans reason together 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 insulting sin thinking Love, always love. Perhaps that’s what we’re all looking for. P. D. James love-always Suicide is the most private and mysterious of acts, inexplicable because the chief actor is never there to explain it. P. D. James mysterious actors suicide you'd like the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. That must be the most futile oath anyone ever swears. P. D. James nothing-but-the-truth oath swear Wars may be fought by decent men, but they're not won by them. P. D. James may men war Murder is the unique crime, the only one for which we can never make reparation to the victim. P. D. James crime murder unique read widely, not in order to copy someone else's style, but to learn to appreciate and recognize good writing and to see how the best writers have achieved their result. Poor writing is, unfortunately, infectious and should be avoided. P. D. James appreciate writing order
