D. James
D. James
order detectives restoration
What the detective story is about is not murder but the restoration of order.
daughter hurt children
The weekend break had begun with the usual resentment and had continued with half-repressed ill humour. It was, of course, his fault. He had been more ready to hurt his wife's feelings and deprive his daughter than inconvenience a pub bar full of strangers. He wished there could be one memory of his dead child which wasn't tainted with guilt and regret.
fighting stupidity together
It's possible to fight intolerance, stupidity and fanaticism when they come separately. When you get all three together it's probably wiser to get out, if only to preserve your sanity.
fiction autobiography courses
All fiction is largely autobiographical and much autobiography is, of course, fiction.
commitment kitchen guilt
I learned early and at that kitchen table that there are ways of avoiding, without guilt, the commitments of love.
people violence excited
People were excited by violence. What, after all, was the sexual act but a voluntarily endured assault, a momentary death?
school people childhood
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 happiest at school or university. Always going back. No reunion ever missed. It always seemed to me rather pathetic.
want energy shows
It shows considerable wisdom to know what you want in life and then to direct all your energies towards getting it.
difficult generous
It is difficult to be generous-minded to those we have greatly harmed.
people too-late shows
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.
father men land
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.
order ideas guilt
I love the idea of bringing order out of disorder which is what the mystery is about. I like the way in which it affirms the sanity of human life and exorcises irrational guilts.
believe mean one-day
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.
past discipline dying
History, which interprets the past to understand the present and confront the future is the least rewarding discipline for a dying species.