Quotes by Dorothy L. Sayers

About Dorothy L. Sayers:

Dorothy Leigh Sayers was a renowned English crime writer, poet, playwright, essayist, translator, and Christian humanist. She was also a student of classical and modern languages.
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But that's men all over ... Poor dears, they can't help it. They haven't got logical minds.

Dorothy L. Sayers

She reflected she must be completely besotted with Peter, if his laughter could hallow an aspidistra.

Dorothy L. Sayers

How can I find the words? Poets have taken them all and left me with nothing to say or do" "Except to teach me for the first time what they meant.

Dorothy L. Sayers

Heaven deliver us, what's a poet? Something that can't go to bed without making a song about it.

Dorothy L. Sayers

He remembered having said to his uncle (with a solemn dogmatism better befitting a much younger man): "Surely it is possible to love with the head as well as the heart." Mr. Delagardie had replied, somewhat drily: "No doubt; so long as you do not end...

Dorothy L. Sayers

Paradoxical as it may seem, to believe in youth is to look backward; to look forward we must believe in age.

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 . They invented the most complicated and astonishing reasons both for her success as a sovereign and f...

Dorothy L. Sayers

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 s...

Dorothy L. Sayers

Now, it is frequently asserted that, with women, the job does not come first. What (people cry) are women doing with this liberty of theirs? What woman really prefers a job to a home and family? Very few, I admit. It is unfortunate that they should s...

Dorothy L. Sayers

Once lay down the rule that the job comes first and you throw that job open to every individual, man or woman, fat or thin, tall or short, ugly or beautiful, who is able to do that job better than the rest of the world.

Dorothy L. Sayers

A man once asked me ... how I managed in my books to write such natural conversation between men when they were by themselves. Was I, by any chance, a member of a large, mixed family with a lot of male friends? I replied that, on the contrary, I was ...

Dorothy L. Sayers

In reaction against the age-old slogan, "woman is the weaker vessel," or the still more offensive, "woman is a divine creature," we have, I think, allowed ourselves to drift into asserting that "a woman is as good as a man," without always pausing to...

Dorothy L. Sayers

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.

Dorothy L. Sayers

I am occasionally desired by congenital imbeciles and the editors of magazines to say something about the writing of detective fiction “from the woman’s point of view.” To such demands, one can only say “Go away and don’t be silly. You migh...

Dorothy L. Sayers

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.

Dorothy L. Sayers

If God made everything, did He make the Devil?' This is the kind of embarrassing question which any child can ask before breakfast, and for which no neat and handy formula is provided in the Parents' Manual…Later in life, however, the problem of ti...

Dorothy L. Sayers

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 ge...

Dorothy L. Sayers

And upon his return, Gherkins, who had always considered his uncle as a very top-hatted sort of person, actually saw him take from his handkerchief-drawer an undeniable automatic pistol. It was at this point that Lord Peter was apotheosed from the st...

Dorothy L. Sayers

Has it ever struck you as odd, or unfortunate, that today, when the proportion of literacy is higher than it has ever been, people should have become susceptible to the influence of advertisement and mass propaganda to an extent hitherto unheard of a...

Dorothy L. Sayers

To make a deliberate falsification for personal gain is the last, worst depth to which either scholar or artist can descend in work or life. ( , 8 September 1935)

Dorothy L. Sayers

Author Bio

  • NameDorothy L. Sayers
  • DescriptionEnglish crime writer, playwright, essayist and Christian writer
  • AliasesDorothy Sayers; Dorothy Leigh Sayers
  • BornJune 13, 1893
  • DiedDecember 17, 1957
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionWriter; Translator; Novelist; Playwright; Essayist; Poet
  • WorksWhose Body?; Clouds Of Witness; Unnatural Death; The Unpleasantness At The Bellona Club; Lord Peter Views The Body; Strong Poison; Five Red Herrings; Have His Carcase; Hangman's Holiday; Murder Must Advertise; The Nine Tailors; Gaudy Night; Busman's Honeymoon; In The Teeth Of The Evidence; Striding Folly