Quotessence
Home / Authors / Dorothy L. Sayers
Dorothy L. Sayers

Dorothy L. Sayers Quotes

Writer

Filter quotes by topic

AllIfsMenPeopleThinkingKnowsMindWellsFirstsHumansWorldFactsLord Peter WimseyShouldSinWayWritingChristianityGivingMaySaid

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.”

IfsThinkingKnowsLittlesSometimesBeautifulCryBirthEatingHappeningsBoatSoleTwistsPotatoesGadgetsDigestionJollyBeastly
Book:The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club
Create image

“Unless we do change our whole way of thought about work, I do not think we shall ever escape from the appalling squirrel-cage of economic confusion in which we have been madly turning for the last three centuries or so, the cage in which we landed ourselves by acquiescing in a social system based upon Envy and Avarice. A society in which consumption has to be artificially stimulated in order to keep production going is a society founded on trash and waste.”

ThinkingWayHas BeensWholeLastsOrderThreeSocialWorkEconomicCenturyWasteEconomicsProductionsEnvyConfusionConsumptionCagesTrashAvariceSquirrelsSocial Systems
Author:Dorothy L. Sayers
Create image

“Never think that wars are irrational catastrophes: they happen when wrong ways of thinking and living bring about intolerable situations ... the root causes of conflict are usually to be found in some wrong way of life in which all parties have acquiesced, and for which everybody must, to some extent, bear the blame.”

ThinkingWayWarHappensFoundCausesPartySituationBearsConflictRootsBlameIrrationalCatastropheWay Of ThinkingWrong WayRoot CauseCauses Of Conflict
Author:Dorothy L. Sayers
Create image

“The Christian faith is the most exciting drama that ever staggered the imagination of man-and the dogma is the drama ... The plot pivots upon a single character, and the whole action is the answer to a single central problem: 'What think ye of Christ?'... He was emphatically not a dull m an in his human lifetime, and if he was God, there can be nothing dull about God either.”

IfsThinkingMenHumansWholeCharacterProblemActionChristianChristImaginationAnswersDramaExcitingLifetimeDullPlotDogmaChristian Faith
Author:Dorothy L. Sayers
Create image

“I think the most joyous thing in life is to loaf around and watch another bloke do a job of work. Look how popular are the men who dig up London with electric drills. Duke's son, cook's son, son of a hundred kings, people will stand there for hours on end, ear drums splitting. Why? Simply for the pleasure of being idle while watching other people work.”

PeopleThinkingMenLooksEndsJobsLife IsHoursPleasureWatchesSonKingsHundredEarsLondonCooksElectricThings In LifeIdleJoyousDukesDrillsSplittingBlokes
Author:Dorothy L. Sayers
Create image

“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.”

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

“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.”

IfsThinkingHumansWould BeEyeFallSidesGoes OnLuckIntentionPracticalsKneesCrashDampFours
Book:Clouds of Witness
Create image

“[T]he more clamour we make about 'the women's point of view', the more we rub it into people that the women's point of view is different, and frankly I do not think it is -- at least in my job. The line I always want to take is, that there is the 'point of view' of the reasonably enlightened human brain, and that this is the aspect of the matter which I am best fitted to uphold.”

PeopleThinkingWantHumansDifferentMatterJobsLinesViewsBrainAspectPoint Of ViewEnlightenedHuman BrainClamour
Author:Dorothy L. Sayers
Create image