Top Dorothy L. Sayers Quotes

Dorothy L. Sayers Biography

Dorothy Leigh Sayers (/ˈsɛərz/ ; 13 June 1893 – 17 December 1957) was a renowned English crime writer and poet. She was also a student of classical and modern languages.

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Dorothy L. Sayers Quotes

Well-bred English people never have imagination.

England, English, Imagination, People

To the average man, life presents itself, not as material malleable to his hand, but as a series of problems. . . which he has to solve. . . And he is distressed to find that the more means he can dispose of-such as machine-power, rapid transport, and general civilized amenities, the more his problems grow in hardness and complexity. . . . Perhaps the first thing he can learn form the artists is that the only way of 'mastering' one's material is to abandon the whole conception of mastery and to co-operate with it in love: whosoever will be a lord of life, let him be its servant.

Civilized, Lord, Love, Mean, Men, Way

You're thinking that people don't keep up old jealousies for twenty years or so. Perhaps not. Not just primitive, brute jealousy. That means a word and a blow. But the thing that rankles is hurt vanity. That sticks. Humiliation. And we've all got a sore spot we don't like to have touched.

Blow, Hurt, Mean, Twenty, Years

Oh, well, faint heart never won so much as a scrap of paper

Heart, Oh Well, Paper, Scrap, Won

A society in which consumption has to be artificially stimulated in order to keep production going is a society founded on trash and waste, for such a society is a house built upon sand.

Founded, House, Order, Society, Waste

I gather that he nearly knocked you down, damaged your property, and generally made a nuisance of himself, and that you instantly concluded he must be some relation to me.

Gather, Instantly, Made, Nuisance, Relation

The making of miracles to edification was as ardently admired by pious Victorians as it was sternly discouraged by Jesus of Nazareth. Not that the Victorians were unique in this respect. Modern writers also indulge in edifying miracles though they generally prefer to use them to procure unhappy endings, by which piece of thaumaturgy they win the title of realists.

Jesus, Prefer, Procure, Title, Unique, Winning

all conscious thought is a process in time; so that to think consciously about Time is like trying to use a foot-rule to measure its own length.

Feet, Length, Like, Measure, Thinking, Time

I have never yet heard any middle-aged man or woman who worked with his or her brains express any regret for the passing of youth.

Brain, Man, Men, Regret, Worked, Youth

I say, I don’t think the human frame is very thoughtfully constructed for this sleuthhound business. If one could go on all fours, or had eyes in ones knees, it would be a lot more practical’… ‘What luck! Here’s a deep, damp ditch on the other side, which I shall now proceed to fall into. ’ A slithering crash proclaimed that he had carried out his intention.

Deep, Eye, Fall, Ones, Proclaimed, Thinking

He was so crooked, you could have used his spine for a safety-pin.

Crooked, Safety Pins, Sarcastic, Spine, Used

A passage is not plain English - still less is it good English - if we are obliged to read it twice to find out what it means.

Clarity, English, Good, Mean, Obliged, Plain English

But you see, I can believe a thing without understanding it. It's all a matter of training.

Believe, See, Thing, Training, Understanding

Those who make some other person their job. . . are dangerous.

Danger, Dangerous, Job, Jobs, Make

The only Christian work is good work, well done

Christian, Done, Good Work, Work, Work Well Done

I am better off with vegetables at the bottom of my garden than with all the fairies of the Midsummer Night's Dream.

Bottom, Dream, Garden, Midsummer, Night

Christendom and heathendom now stand face to face. . . At bottom is a violent and irreconcilable quarrel about the nature of God and the nature of an and the ultimate nature of the universe; it is a war of dogma.

Bottom, Christian, Quarrel, Religious, Stand, War

No share-pusher could vend his worthless stock, if he could not count on meeting, in his prospective victim, an unscrupulous avarice as vicious as his own, but stupider. Every time a man expects, as he says, his money to work for him, he is expecting other people to work for him.

Count, Expecting, Man, Men, People, Victim

Everybody is, I suppose, either Classic or Gothic by nature. Either you feel in your bones that buildings should be rectangular boxes with lids to them, or you are moved to the marrow by walls that climb and branch, and break into a inflorescence of pinnacles.

Boxes, Branches, Classic, Gothic, Nature, Wall

He was being about as protective as a can-opener.

Protective, Protectiveness

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Dorothy L. Sayers Biography

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