Without the hope of posterity, for our race if not for ourselves, without the assurance that we being dead yet live, all pleasures of the mind and senses sometimes seem to me no more than pathetic and crumbling defences shored up against our ruin.
P. D. Jamesyou'd like the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. That must be the most futile oath anyone ever swears.
P. D. JamesIf from infancy you treat children as gods, they are liable in adulthood to act as devils.
P. D. James