Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Dorothy L. Sayers

Quote by Dorothy L. Sayers

“It is extraordinarily entertaining to watch the historians of the past ... entangling themselves in what they were pleased to call the "problem" of Queen Elizabeth. They invented the most complicated and astonishing reasons both for her success as a sovereign and for her tortuous matrimonial policy. She was the tool of Burleigh, she was the tool of Leicester, she was the fool of Essex; she was diseased, she was deformed, she was a man in disguise. She was a mystery, and must have some extraordinary solution. Only recently has it occrurred to a few enlightened people that the solution might be quite simple after all. She might be one of the rare people were born into the right job and put that job first.”

Quote by Dorothy L. Sayers

Work

Author

Dorothy L. Sayers
Dorothy L. Sayers

Dorothy L. Sayers was an English writer renowned for her detective novels. Her works are celebrated for their unique literary style and profound insights into criminal psychology. Sayers' detective novels typically feature the character of Valery West, a female detective, whose stories offer not only suspenseful plots but also delve into moral and philosophical issues. more

You May Also Like

“Langzaam zoom ik in en zie tegelijkertijd de drooggetrainde, wiegende rug van Madonna (‘Vogue’) en ik weet dat in de kooi van haar ribben, ingekapseld in taaie draden, haar hart klopt, als een glanzend oranje embryo. Om de een of andere reden stelt mij dat gerust en daarom laat ik de camera het plekje tussen haar schouderblad en ruggengraat viseren waarna ik in de badkamer verdwijn.”

“You are your abilities and they are you. I can't put it to you more plainly. Do you know why I hate this cure? It's a statement that what we are is inherently wrong. It's a punishment for something that isn't our fault - all because they can't control their fear about what we can do, anymore than they can control their resentment that there are people out there stronger and more powerful than they are. They want to strip you of yourself - your ability to protect and enforce your right to make decisions about your life. Your own body. Mark my words: in the end, it won't be a choice. They'll decide this for you.”

“I walked until I lost the light from the fire pit, clawing at my T-shirt, trying to pull it away from my skin. It smelled like his room. Like evergreens and spice and old, decaying things. I pulled it over my head and threw it as hard and far as I could, and still—still—I couldn’t shake the smell. It was everywhere: my hands, my jeans, my bra. I should have run straight for the lake, or even the showers. I should have tried to soak his venom out.”

“Prior to the age of telegraphy, the information-action ratio was sufficiently close so that most people had a sense of being able to control some of the contingencies in their lives. What people knew about had action-value. In the information world created by telegraphy, this sense of potency was lost, precisely because the whole world became context for news. Everything became everyone's business. For the first time, we were sent information which answered no question we had asked, and which, in any case, did not permit the right of reply.”

“There is no logical, rational, pre-structured criterion "out there" with a divine plan. There is no truth "out there" which our weak minds or souls eventually run across. There is this casual, haphazard, amoral process that leaps the logical gaps and brings about newness. And the procedurés only demand is that given talents be invested, risked, doubled, the possibilities explored.”