Quotes from Dorothy L. Sayers

A novelist couldn't possibly marry all the people from whom she wanted specialised information.

he is filled with the solemn intoxication that comes of intricate ritual faultlessly performed.

Five minutes' practice before the glass every day, and you will soon acquire that vacant look so desirable for all rogues, detectives and Government officials.

But peace is in the mind, and not in streets, however old and beautiful

can't see that she could have found anything nastier to say if she'd thought it out with both hands for a fortnight. She

Well, it's no good jumping at conclusions." "Jump? You don't even crawl distantly within sight of a conclusion.

I have a peculiar instinct about pubs. I can find one blindfold in a pea-souper with both hands tied behind me.

The vital power of an imaginative work demands a diversity within its unity; and the stronger the diversity, the more massive the unity. Incidentally, this is the weakness of most "edifying" or "propaganda" literature. There is no diversity. The Energy is active only in one part of the whole, and in consequence the wholeness is destroyed and the Power diminished. You cannot, in fact, give God His due without giving the devil his due also.

Fou!" "Who?" "I didn't say 'who'; I said 'fou,' " "I know you did. I said who?" "Who?" "Who's fou?" "Oh, is. By Jove, 'suis'! 'Je suis fou.

Peter: Oy! Harriet: Hullo! Peter: I just wanted to ask whether you'd given any further thought to that suggestion about marrying me. Harriet (sarcastically) : I suppose you were thinking how delightful it would be to go through life together like this? Peter: Well, not quite like this. Hand in hand was more my idea. Harriet: What is that in your hand? Peter: A dead starfish. Harriet: Poor fish! Peter: No ill-feeling, I trust? Harriet: Oh, dear no.

Harriet was angry, and her face showed it. Men; when they got together they were all alike--even Peter. For a moment he and Kirk stood together on the far side of a chasm, and she hated them both.

For among my people are found wicked men: they lay wait, as he that setteth snares; they set a trap, they catch men.

Of course, [Miss Climpson,] you mustn't appear to be inquiring. You must find some good gossipy lady living in the neighborhood and just get her to talk in a natural way. You must pretend to be gossipy yourself – it's not in your nature, I know, but I'm sure you can make a little pretence about it – and find out all you can.

Nobody minds coarseness, but one must draw the line at cruelty -Lord Peter Wimsey

this plain, sulky, inarticulate girl, who had never had any

I heard them saying something about a razor—Miss Vane! What killed him?' There were no kindly words for this—not even a long, scientific, Latin name. 'His throat was cut, Mrs Weldon.' (Brutal Saxon monosyllables.)

The untoward incident cast a certain gloom over the breakfast table, though Wimsey, who felt his sides clapping together like an empty portmanteau, was only too happy to devour his eggs and bacon and coffee in peace.

So she will, said the Dowager. You'll see that young man in the Cabinet before very long. Such a handsome couple on a public platform, and very sound, I'm told, about pigs, and that's so important, the British breakfast-table being what it is.

WHAT IN THE WORLD, Wimsey, are you doing in this Morgue?" demanded Captain Fentiman, flinging aside the Evening Banner with the air of a man released from an irksome duty.

She is a very conscientious person," said Miss Lydgate, "but she has rather an unfortunate knack of making any subject sound dull. It's a great pity, because she is exceptionally sound and dependable. However, that doesn't greatly matter in her present appointment; she holds a librarianship somewhere—Miss

People who seek to serve the community end up falsifying their work, she wrote, whether the work is writing a novel or baking bread, because they are not single- mindedly focused on the task at hand. But if you serve the work— if you perform each task to its utmost perfection— then you will experience the deep satisfaction of craftsmanship and you will end up serving the community more richly than you could have consciously planned.

Yesterday she looked like a Renaissance portrait stepped out of its frame. I put it down first of all to the effect of gold lamé, but on consideration, I think it was probably due to "lerve.

if the M.C.C. were to agree, in a thoughtless moment, that the ball must be so hit by the batsman that it should never come down to earth again, cricket would become an impossibility. A vivid sense of reality usually restrains sports committees from promulgating laws of this kind; other legislators occasionally lack this salutary realism.

though I always think that the franker you are with people, the more you're likely to deceive 'em; so unused is the modern world to the open hand and the guileless heart, what?