Dorothy L. Sayers Quotes

A facility for quotation covers the absence of original thought.

There’s ways and ways of dyin’. Some is took, and some takes French leave, and others is ‘elped out of life.

The dogma of the Incarnation is the most dramatic thing about Christianity, and indeed, the most dramatic thing that ever entered the mind of man; but if you tell people so, they stare at you in bewilderment.

On the strength of his literary output alone… any woman of sense would decline to tackle D.H. Lawrence at 1,000 pounds a night.

It seems to me quite disastrous that the idea should have got about that Christianity is an other-worldly, unreal, idealistic kind of religion that suggests that if we are good we shall be happy. On the contrary, it is fiercely and even harshly realistic, insisting that there are certain eternal achievements that make even happiness look like trash.

Plain lies are dangerous.

Oh, well, faint heart never won so much as a scrap of paper

The only Christian work is good work, well done

The only sin passion can commit is to be joyless.

We may argue eloquently that ‘Honesty is the best Policy’ – unfortunately, the moment honesty is adopted for the sake of policy it mysteriously ceases to be honesty.

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.

A passage is not plain English – still less is it good English – if we are obliged to read it twice to find out what it means.