Quotes from Dorothy L. Sayers

She had written what she felt herself called upon to write; and, though she was beginning to feel that she might perhaps do this thing better, she had no doubt that the thing itself was the right thing for her. It had overmastered her without her knowledge or notice, and that was the proof of its mastery.

They accept for themselves everything that was affirmed of creative life incarnate, including the love and, if necessary, the crucifixion, death, and victory. Looking at what happened to that life, they will expect to be saved, not from danger and suffering, but in danger and suffering.

From time to time complaints are made about the ringing of church bells. It seems strange that a generation which tolerates the uproar of the internal combustion engine and the wailing of the jazz band should be so sensitive to the one loud noise that is made to the glory of God. England, alone in the world, has perfected the art of change-ringing and the true ringing of bells by rope and wheel and will not lightly surrender her unique heritage.

The mind most effectually works upon the body, producing by his passions and perturbations miraculous alterations, as melancholy, despair, cruel diseases, and sometimes death itself …They that live in fear are never free, resolute, secure, never merry, but in continual pain …It causeth oft-times sudden madness.

If you are once sure what you do want, you find that everything else goes down before it like grass under a roller—all other interests, your own and other people's.

Herein fail not at your peril.

Nine Tailors Make a Man.

Perfectly. I'm a terrific success at pottering round asking sloppy questions. And I can put away quite a lot of beer in a good cause.

principles have become more dangerous than passions. It's getting uncommonly easy to kill people in large numbers, and the first thing a principle does—if it really is a principle—is to kill somebody.

The interview with the cat had been particularly full of appeal. The animal was, it seemed, an illustrious rat-catcher, with many famous deeds to her credit. Not only that, but she had been the first to notice the smell of fire and had, by her anguished and intelligent mewings, attracted the attention of night-watchman number one, who had been in the act of brewing himself a cup of tea when the outbreak took place.

principles have become more dangerous than passions. It's getting uncommonly easy to kill people in large numbers, and the first thing a principle does—if it really is a principle—is to kill somebody." "'The real tragedy is not the conflict of good with evil but of good with good'; that means a problem with no solution.

I'm sorry,' said Wimsey. 'It fascinates me. I think the most joyous thing in life is to loaf round and watch another bloke doing a job of work.

Yes, I know. The moment I found she preferred burgundy to champagne I had the highest opinion of her." "No, really

Mademoiselle, I tell you frankly that to have a healthy mind in a healthy body is the greatest gift of le bon Dieu, and when I see so many people who have clean blood and strong bodies spoiling themselves and distorting their brains with drugs and drink and foolishness, it makes me angry. They should leave that to the people who cannot help themselves because to them life is without hope.

Remorse is eating his soul like a caterpillar in a cabbage.

I am concerned only with the proper training of the mind to encounter and deal with the formidable mass of undigested problems presented to it by the modern world. For the tools of learning are the same, in any and every subject; and the person who knows how to use them will, at any age, get the mastery of a new subject in half the time and with a quarter of the effort expended by the person who has not the tools at his command.

Wherever you find a great man, you will find a great mother or a great wife standing behind him -- or so they used to say. It would be interesting to know how many great women have had great fathers and husbands behind them." ? Dorothy L. Sayers, Gaudy Night

From time to time complaints are made about the ringing of church bells. It seems strange that a generation which tolerates the uproar of the internal combustion engine and the wailing of the jazz band should be so sensitive to the one loud noise that is made to the glory of God. England, alone in the world

is mathematically compounded of ambition, distraction, uglification and derision

Unfortunately, the sinner isn't always the victim. Why should it be? said Mathews. Nature does not work by a scheme of poetical justice. Nor does God, said Perry. We suffer for one another, as, indeed, we must, being all members one of another. Can you separate the child from the father, the man from the brute, or even the man from the vegetable cell...?

To boast loudly in public of one's own country seemed to him indecent – like enlarging on the physical perfections of one's own wife in a smoking room.

Thus we build up a defense mechanism against self-questioning because, to tell the truth, we are very much afraid of ourselves.

For example, the word 'daffy-down-dilly.' It is a criminal libel to call a lawyer a daffy-down-dilly. Ha! Yes, I advise you never to do such a thing.

I've broken the ice,' she said aloud, 'and the water wasn't so cold after all. I shall go back, from time to time. I shall go back.