Quotes from Dorothy L. Sayers

Death in particular seems to provide the minds of the Anglo-Saxon race with a greater fund of innocent amusement than any other single subject.

None of us feels the true love of God till we realize how wicked we are. But you can't teach people that - they have to learn by experience.

I love you - I am at rest with you - I have come home.

Books...are like lobster shells, we surround ourselves with 'em, then we grow out of 'em and leave 'em behind, as evidence of our earlier stages of development.

The English language has a deceptive air of simplicity so have some little frocks but they are both not the kind of thing you can run up in half an hour with a machine.

The worst sin - perhaps the only sin - passion can commit, is to be joyless.

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.

Facts are like cows. If you look them in the face long enough, they generally run away.

How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.

Books... are like lobster shells, we surround ourselves with 'em, then we grow out of 'em and leave 'em behind, as evidence of our earlier stages of development.

Do you find it easy to get drunk on words?" "So easy that, to tell you the truth, I am seldom perfectly sober.

In the world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called Despair...the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die.

Some people's blameless lives are to blame for a good deal.

The rule seemed to be that a great woman must either die unwed ... or find a still greater man to marry her. ... The great man, on the other hand, could marry where he liked, not being restricted to great women; indeed, it was often found sweet and commendable in him to choose a woman of no sort of greatness at all.

What are you to do with the people who are cursed with both hearts and brains?

Time and trouble will tame an advanced young woman, but an advanced old woman is uncontrollable by any earthly force.

In fact, there is perhaps only one human being in a thousand who is passionately interested in his job for the job's sake. The difference is that if that one person in a thousand is a man, we say, simply, that he is passionately keen on his job; if she is a woman, we say she is a freak.

Nothing goes so well with a hot fire and buttered crumpets as a wet day without and a good dose of comfortable horrors within. The heavier the lashing of the rain and the ghastlier the details, the better the flavour seems to be.

What we ask is to be human individuals, however peculiar and unexpected. It is no good saying: "You are a little girl and therefore you ought to like dolls"; if the answer is, "But I don't," there is no more to be said.

Even idiots ocasionally speak the truth accidentally.

We are much too much inclined in these days to divide people into permanent categories, forgetting that a category only exists for its special purpose and must be forgotten as soon as that purpose is served.

For God's sake, let's take the word 'possess' and put a brick round its neck and drown it ... We can't possess one another. We can only give and hazard all we have.

Do you know how to pick a lock?' 'Not in the least, I'm afraid.' 'I often wonder what we go to school for,' said Wimsey.

The great advantage about telling the truth is that nobody ever believes it.