Category Archives: P.D. James

“The greatest of these is lucre” by P.D. James

“And the house alone, thought Dalgliesh, must be worth at least three-quarters of a million, probably considerably more, given its position and unique architechtural interest. He recalled as he so often did the words of an old detective sergeant when he, Dalgliesh, had been a newly appointed DC: ‘Love, Lust, Loathing, Lucre, the four L’s of murder, laddie. And the greatest of these is lucre.'”

–P.D. James, A Taste for Death (New York: Vintage Books, 1986), 115.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

2 Comments

Filed under Christian Theology, Literature, Mammon, P.D. James, Quotable Quotes

“One of those perfect English autumnal days” by P.D. James

“It was one of those perfect English autumnal days which occur more frequently in memory than in life. The rich colours of grass and earth were intensified by the mellow light of a sun almost warm enough for spring, and the air was a sweet evocation of all Dalgliesh’s boyhood autumns: woodsmoke, ripe apples, the last sheaves of harvest and the strong sea-smelling breeze flowing water.

The Thames was running strongly, under a quickening breeze. It flattened the grasses fringing the river edge and eddied the stream into the little gulleys which fretted the bank. Under a surface iridescent in blues and greens, on which the light moved and changed as if on coloured glass, the blade-like weeds streamed and undulated. Beyond the clumps of willows on the far bank, a herd of Friesians were peacefully grazing.

Opposite and about seventy yards downstream he could see a bungalow, little more than a large white shack on stilts, which he guessed must be their destination. And he knew too, as he had known walking under the trees of St. James’s Park, that here he would find the clue he sought. But he was in no hurry. Like a child postponing the moment of assured satisfaction, he was glad that they were early, grateful for this small hiatus of calm.

And suddenly he experienced a minute of tingling happiness so unexpected and so keen that he almost held his breath as if he could halt time. They came to him so rarely now, these moments of intense physical joy, and he had never before experienced one in the middle of a murder investigation. The moment passed and he heard his own sigh.”

–P.D. James, A Taste for Death (New York: Vintage Books, 1986), 356.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Leave a comment

Filed under Literature, P.D. James, Quotable Quotes, Writing

“Somewhere there lay a dead body” by P.D. James

“Commander Adam Dalgliesh was not unused to being urgently summoned to non-scheduled meetings with unspecified people at inconvenient times, but usually with one purpose in common: he could be confident that somewhere there lay a dead body awaiting his attention.”

–P. D. James, The Lighthouse (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 3.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Leave a comment

Filed under Literature, P.D. James, Quotable Quotes, Writing

“The greatest mystery of all” by P.D. James

“The greatest mystery of all is the human heart, and that is the mystery with which all good novelists are concerned.”

–P.D. James, quoted in “Murder in the Vicarage” by Ralph C. Wood, First Things, (No. 167, November 2006), p. 41.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Leave a comment

Filed under P.D. James, Quotable Quotes, Uncategorized, Worldview, Writing