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Dorothy L. Sayers

Dorothy L. Sayers Quotes

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Famous Dorothy L. Sayers Quotes

“Birth is beastly - and death - and digestion, if it comes to that. Sometimes when I think of what's happening inside me to a beautiful suprème de sole, with the caviare in boats, and the croûtons and the jolly little twists of potato and all the gadgets - I could cry. But there it is, don't you know.”

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Book:The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club
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“If we did not know all His retorts by heart, if we had not taken the sting out of them by incessant repetition in the accents of the pulpit, and if we had not somehow got it into our heads that brains were rather reprehnsible, we should reckon Him among the greatest wits of all time. Nobody else, in three brief years, has achieved such an output of epigram.”

IfsKnowsShouldYearsHeartThreeJesusChristBrainTakenJesus ChristWitAll TimeAccentsRepetitionPulpitOutputEpigramsIncessantRetorts
Author:Dorothy L. Sayers
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“For we let our young men and women go out unarmed in a day when armor was never so necessary. By teaching them to read, we have left them at the mercy of the printed word. By the invention of the film and the radio, we have made certain that no aversion to reading shall secure them from the incessant battery of words, words, words. They do not know what the words mean; they do not know how to ward them off or blunt their edge or fling them back; they are prey to words in their emotions instead of being the masters of them in their intellects.”

KnowsMenMeanMadeFilmYoungCertainReadingLeftEmotionKnow HowTeachingMastersMen And WomenMercyEdgesRadioIntellectInventionSecureYoung ManPreyPrintedArmorBluntAversionBatteriesFlingIncessantUnarmedPrinted Word
Author:Dorothy L. Sayers
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“But suppose one doesn't quite know which one wants to put first. Suppose," said Harriet, falling back on words which were not her own, "suppose one is cursed with both a heart and a brain?" "You can usually tell," said Miss de Vine, "by seeing what kind of mistakes you make. I'm quite sure that one never makes fundamental mistakes about the thing one really wants to do. Fundamental mistakes arise out of lack of genuine interest. In my opinion, that is.”

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Author:Dorothy L. Sayers
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“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.”

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Book:Gaudy Night
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“Listen, Harriet. I do unterstand. I know you don't want either to give or to take ... You don't want ever again to have to depend for happiness on another person." "That's true. That's the truest thing you ever said." "All right. I can respect that. Only you've got to play the game. Don't force an emotional situation and then blame me for it." "But I don't want any situation. I want to be left in peace.”

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Author:Dorothy L. Sayers
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“Philip wasn't the sort of man to make a friend of a woman. He wanted devotion. I gave him that. I did, you know. But I couldn't stand being made a fool of. I couldn;t stand being put on probation, like an office-boy, to see if I was good enough to be condescended to. I quite thought he was honest when he said he didn't believe in marriage -- and then it turned out that it was a test, to see whether my devotion was abject enough. Well, it wasn't. I didn't like having matrimony offered as a bad-conduct prize.”

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Book:Strong Poison
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“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.”

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Author:Dorothy L. Sayers
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“Lawyers enjoy a little mystery, you know. Why, if everybody came forward and told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth straight out, we should all retire to the workhouse.”

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Book:The Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries: Whose Body?, Clouds of Witness, and Unnatural Death
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