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.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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 s...

Dorothy L. Sayers

Lord Peter was hampered in his career as a private detective by a public school education. Despite Parker's admonitions, he was not always able to discount it. His mind had been warped in its young growth by "Raffles" and "Sherlock Holmes," or the se...

Dorothy L. Sayers

The really essential factors of success in any undertaking are money and opportunity, and as a rule, the man who can make the first can make the second.

Dorothy L. Sayers

I looked for any footmarks of course, but naturally, with all this rain, there wasn't a sign. Of course, if this were a detective story, there'd have been a convenient shower exactly an hour before the crime and a beautiful set of marks which could o...

Dorothy L. Sayers

I give you full credit for the discovery, I crawl, I grovel, my name is Watson, and you need not say what you were just going to say, because I admit it all.

Dorothy L. Sayers

The only Christian work is good work well done.

Dorothy L. Sayers

There is, in fact, a paradox about working to serve the community, and it is this: that to aim directly at serving the community is to falsify the work; the only way to serve the community is to forget the community and serve the work.

Dorothy L. Sayers

At present we have no clear grasp of the principle that every man should do the work for which he is fitted by nature!

Dorothy L. Sayers

This recognition of the truth we get in the artist’s work comes to us as a revelation of new truth. I want to be clear about that. I am not referring to the sort of patronizing recognition we give a writer by nodding our heads and observing, “Yes...

Dorothy L. Sayers

What do we find God 'doing about' this business of sin and evil?...God did not abolish the fact of evil; He transformed it. He did not stop the Crucifixion; He rose from the dead.

Dorothy L. Sayers

Perhaps [the critics are right and] the drama is played out now and Jesus is safely dead and buried. Perhaps. It is ironical and entertaining to consider that at least once in the world’s history those words might have been said with complete convi...

Dorothy L. Sayers

None of us feels the true love of God till we realize how wicked we are. But you can't teach people that - they have to learn by experience.

Dorothy L. Sayers

I love you - I am at rest with you - I have come home.

Dorothy L. Sayers

Death seems to provide the minds of the Anglo-Saxon race with a greater fund of amusement than any other single subject.

Dorothy L. Sayers

The great advantage about telling the truth is that nobody ever believes it.

Dorothy L. Sayers

While time lasts there will always be a future, and that future will hold both good and evil, since the world is made to that mingled pattern.

Dorothy L. Sayers

A human being must have occupation, of he or she is not to become a nuisance to the world.

Dorothy L. Sayers

The only sin passion can commit is to be joyless.

Dorothy L. Sayers

She always says, my lord, that facts are like cows. If you look them in the face hard enough they generally run away.

Dorothy L. Sayers

The English language has a deceptive air of simplicity; so have some little frocks; but they are both not the kind of thing you can run up in half an hour with a machine.

Dorothy L. Sayers

Those who prefer their English sloppy have only themselves to thank if the advertisement writer uses his mastery of the vocabulary and syntax to mislead their weak minds.

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