"It is difficult to be generous-minded to those we have greatly harmed."
- P.D. James
"Violent death erase[s] more than the semblance of life."
"Snapping shut his mobile, Dalgliesh reflected that murder, a unique crime for which no reparation is ever possible, imposes it own compulsions as well as it's conventions. He doubted whether Macklefie..."
"She had quickly learned that to show unhappiness was to risk the loss of love."
"What is there to be frightened of? We shall be dealing only with men."
"I wonder if childhood is ever really happy. Just as well, perhaps. To be blissfully happy so young would leave one always seeking to recapture the unobtainable. Like those people who were always happi..."
"…It was embarrassing now to recall with what little regret he had let slip his pleasures and preoccupations, the imminence of loss revealing them for what they were, at best only a solace, at worst a ..."
"Before he turned again the to the car his eye was caught by a small clump of unknown flowers. The pale pinkish white heads rose from a mossy pad on top of the wall and trembled delicately in the light..."
"Authors always take rejection badly. They equate it with infanticide."
"Open your mind to new experiences, particularly to the study of other people. Nothing that happens to a writer – however happy, however tragic – is ever wasted."