Quotes from The Private Patient

“If the screams of all earth's living creatures were one scream of pain, surely it would shake the stars.”
― P.D. James, quote from The Private Patient

“The city which lay below was a charnel house built on multi-layered bones centuries older than those which lay beneath the cities of Hamburg or Dresden. Was this knowledge part of the mystery it held for her, a mystery felt most strongly on a bell-chimed Sunday on her solitary exploration of its hidden alleys and squares? Time had fascinated her from childhood, its apparent power to move at different speeds, the dissolution it wrought on minds and bodies, her sense that each moment, all moments past and those to come, were fused into an illusory present which with every breath became the unalterable, indestructible past. In the City of London these moments were caught and solidified in stone and brick, in churches and monuments and in bridges which spanned the grey-brown ever-flowing Thames. She would walk out in spring or summer as early as six o'clock, double-locking the front door behind her, stepping into a silence more profound and mysterious than the absence of noise. Sometimes in this solitary perambulation it seenmed that her own footsteps were muted, as if some part of her were afraid to waken the dead who had walked thse streets and had known the same silence.”
― P.D. James, quote from The Private Patient

“Benton had a strong interest in helping to ensure that Warren's home life wasn't greatly disturbed: his wife was Cornish, and that morning Warren had arrived with six Cornish pasties of remarkable flavour and succulence.”
― P.D. James, quote from The Private Patient

“find depressing his determination to make his characters suffer even when a little common sense on both his part and theirs could avoid it. Tess is one of the most irritating young women in Victorian fiction. Won”
― P.D. James, quote from The Private Patient

“They had lived to see their simple patriotism derided, their morality despised, their savings devalued. They caused no trouble. Millions of pounds of public money wasn’t regularly siphoned into their neighbourhoods in the hope of bribing, cajoling or coercing them into civic virtue. If they protested that their cities had become alien, their children taught in overcrowded schools where 90 per cent of the children spoke no English, they were lectured about the cardinal sin of racism by those more expensively and comfortably circumstanced. Unprotected by accountants, they were the milch-cows of the rapacious Revenue. No lucrative industry of social concern and psychological analysis had grown up to analyse and condone their inadequacies on the grounds of deprivation or poverty.”
― P.D. James, quote from The Private Patient

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Popular quotes

“I'm not a leader now. I'm a whole damn army.”
― Joss Whedon, quote from Fray

“My dream, even now, is to walk for weeks with some friend that I love, leisurely wandering from place to place, with no route arranged and no object in view, with liberty to go on all day or to linger all day, as we choose; but the question of luggage, unknown to the simple pilgrim, is one of the rocks on which my plans have been shipwrecked, and the other is the certain censure of relatives, who, not fond of walking themselves, and having no taste for noonday naps under hedges, would be sure to paralyse my plans before they had grown to maturity by the honest horror of their cry, "How very unpleasant if you were to meet any one you know!" The relative of five hundred years back would have said "How Holy!”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, quote from Elizabeth and Her German Garden

“So I really think that your parents should let you marry me. Not right now--I have so much to do, with Mika and Philantha and the magic--but someday. Someday not too far away. I did save Thorvaldor, after all, and I expect that Mika will pay me well in exchange for my years of knowledge. She even threatened to title me--it would be just like her to want to rub everyone’s noses in my commonness. And I think that, if they have any objections, you should just--”
“Break with them?” he asked. He was trying to be serious, but one corner of his mouth kept twitching.
“Well, yes,” I admitted.
“I already did,” he said, and my mouth fell open. “Or at least, I threatened to, if they wouldn’t give me their blessing.” A thin line worked its way between his eyebrows, and his smile dimmed a little. “I think they knew it was coming, but it didn’t make my father happy. He stormed around shouting about duty, and for a while I thought I might really have to go through with it.”
The line deepened, and he glanced away from me. “That was frightening. It was my choice--is my choice--but practically it would have been…difficult. You aren’t the only person who was trained for just one thing. I don’t know if I know how to be anything but the future Earl of Rithia. I kept telling myself I could do it, become someone else if they disinherited me, but I didn’t want to break with them. I would have, but I didn’t want to.”
My heart clenched a little, seeing the glimmer of tension around his eyes.
Suddenly, the tiny grin flickered at his mouth again. “But then my father started thinking about the advantages of my marrying someone who had done the future queen such a service. After that, he was happy to give his blessing.”
I shook my head as if to clear it. I had come here asking him to do just that, but hearing it out loud seemed like something from a dream. “You really told them you wanted to marry me?” I asked.
The smile had taken over his whole face now. “I told you before: I fell under your spell before you even knew you had magic, before you saved a kingdom, back when there was no chance you would be allowed to marry me. Nothing’s really changed since then, except that now any children we have might be wizards themselves, and I’ll be hopelessly outnumbered.
“So, yes, I want to marry you. Someday. If you’ll have me,” he said modestly.
“Of course I will, you idiot,” I said with a shriek, and threw myself into his arms.”
― Eilis O'Neal, quote from The False Princess

“Pessimism is not good for the soul."
"I sold my soul years ago."
"To whom?"
"The bitch goddess Success. She cut town before paying off.”
― Jonathan Kellerman, quote from When the Bough Breaks

“I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; surely I will heal you. 2 KINGS 20:5”
― Stormie Omartian, quote from The Power of a Praying Wife

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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.