# P.D. James - Quotes: 58 - Author page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/pd-james ## Books - [A Certain Justice](https://www.leafyquotes.com/pd-james/a-certain-justice.md) — 23 quotes - [A Taste for Death](https://www.leafyquotes.com/pd-james/a-taste-for-death.md) — 2 quotes - [An Unsuitable Job for a Woman](https://www.leafyquotes.com/pd-james/an-unsuitable-job-for-a-woman.md) — 13 quotes - [Innocent Blood](https://www.leafyquotes.com/pd-james/innocent-blood.md) — 1 quote - [Sleep No More](https://www.leafyquotes.com/pd-james/sleep-no-more.md) — 1 quote - [The Children of Men](https://www.leafyquotes.com/pd-james/the-children-of-men.md) — 18 quotes ## Recently added quotes > She came to know a different London and she saw it through different eyes. The city was all things to all men. It reflected and deepened mood; it did not create it. Here the miserable were more miserable, the lonely more bereft, while the prosperous and happy saw reflected in its river and glittering life the confirmation of their deserved success. In her week of seeking, unsuccessfully, for a flat in which she could bear, even temporarily, to live, Philippa felt increasingly depressed and rejected. p. 95 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/pd-james/innocent-blood/she-came-to-know.md) > Marriage is both the most public and the most secret of institutions, its miseries as irritatingly insistent as a hacking cough, its private malaise less easily diagnosed. And nothing is so destructive as unhappiness to social life. No one wants to sit in embarrassed silence while his host and hostess demonstrate their mutual incompatibility and dislike. p. 133 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/pd-james/sleep-no-more/marriage-is-both.md) > "I was glad to give up teaching, at least in London, glad to be rid of noise and violence and staff-room politics, and the constant fight to keep order." p. 307 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/pd-james/a-certain-justice/i-was-glad.md) > Mrs Buckley was revealed as a slight, nervous-looking woman with a small precisely formed mouth between bulging cheeks, which gave her the appearance of a hamster. p. 164 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/pd-james/a-certain-justice/mrs-buckley-was.md) > Oh yes he does. I may not be religious but I know my Bible. My mother saw to that. He bargains all right. But He's supposed to be just. If he wants belief He'd better provide some evidence. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/pd-james/the-children-of-men/oh-yes-he-does.md) > We do. The question is, how do you? [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/pd-james/the-children-of-men/we-do-the.md) > Perhaps His experiment went spectacularly wrong, sir. Perhaps He's just baffled. Seeing the mess, not knowing how to put it right. Perhaps not wanting to put it right. Perhaps He only had enough power left for one final intervention. So He made it. Whoever He is, whatever He is, I hope he burns in His own Hell. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/pd-james/the-children-of-men/perhaps-his-experiment.md) > The Man Penal settlement. Do you know whats happening there? The murders, the starvation, the complete breakdown of law and order. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/pd-james/the-children-of-men/the-man-penal.md) > But of course she knew it. Chambers was a hotbed of gossip. People spoke in front of her. Gossip permeated the very air as if by a mysterious process of osmosis. p. 215 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/pd-james/a-certain-justice/but-of-course.md) > She couldn't remember when her interest in him, in his mysteriousness, his silences, his power, had grown into fascination, but she knew the precise moment when fascination had sharpened into desire. p. 425 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/pd-james/a-certain-justice/she-couldnt-remember.md) > I'm not a tyrant, but I can't afford to be merciful. Whatever it is necessary to do, I will do it. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/pd-james/the-children-of-men/im-not-a-tyrant.md) > How odd, he thought, that one could get used to beauty [i.e. in one's wife]. Once he had thought that any price would be worth paying if he could possess it, know it to be exclusively his, feed on it, be comforted, exalted, even sanctified by it. But you couldn't possess beauty any more than you could possess another human being. p. 99 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/pd-james/a-certain-justice/how-odd-he-thought.md)