#quote: dorothy l sayers

[dujourmeansdeath]

[nobeerreviews]

Detective stories keep alive a view of the world which ought to be true. Of course people read them for fun... But underneath they feed a hunger for justice... you offer to divert them, and you show them by stealth the orderly world in which we should all try to be living.

-- Dorothy L. Sayers

[idratherdreamofjune]

We are inclined to think of peace-time as a condition in which nothing particular happens; in which we can put our feet on the mantelpiece and retire into our private lives, leaving the status quo to maintain itself. There is no surer preparation for war. The maintenance of peace requires a perpetual vigilance, because as life goes on and conditions change the balance needs ever fresh movement to keep it stable. In other words, peace is an active and not a passive condition.

Dorothy L. Sayers, in Begin Here: A War-Time Essay (1940), applying entropy to peace.

[j-august]

"The trouble is," said the Librarian, "that everybody sneers at restrictions and demands freedom, till something annoying happens; then they demand angrily what has become of the discipline."

Dorothy L. Sayers, Gaudy Night

[timotey]

"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.

Clouds of Witness by Dorothy L. Sayers

[leojurand]

She responded with a small contented sound like a snort—an absurd sound that seemed to lift the sealing stone and release some well-spring of laughter deep down within him. It came bubbling and leaping up in the most tremendous hurry to reach the sunlight, so that all his blood danced with it and his lungs were stifled with the rush and surge of this extraordinary fountain of delight. He felt himself at once ridiculous and omnipotent. He was exultant. He wanted to shout.

—Dorothy L. Sayers, Busman's Honeymoon

[blackswaneuroparedux]

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 an only child and had practically never seen or spoken to any men of my own age till I was about twenty-five. "Well," said the man, "I shouldn't have expected a woman (meaning me) to have been able to make it so convincing." I replied that I had coped with this difficult problem by making my men talk, as far as possible, like ordinary human beings. This aspect of the matter seemed to surprise the other speaker; he said no more, but took it away to chew it over. One of these days it may quite likely occur to him that women, as well as men, when left to themselves, talk very much like human beings also.

Dorothy L. Sayers, Are Women Human? Astute and Witty Essays on the Role of Women in Society

[mariacallous]

‘I sometimes wonder whether we gain anything by gaining time.’

‘Well – if one leaves letters unanswered long enough, some of them answer themselves. Nobody can prevent the Fall of Troy, but a dull, careful person may manage to smuggle out the Lares and Penates – even at the risk of having the epithet pius tacked to his name.’

‘The Universities are always being urged to march in the van of progress.’

‘But epic actions are all fought by the rearguard – at Roncevaux and Thermopylæ.’

‘Very well,’ said the Warden, laughing, ‘let us die in our tracks, having accomplished nothing but an epic.’

Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers

[ladyphlogiston]

Lord Peter Wimsey, Whose Body?

[thesarahshay]

I love the internet for informing me that, in 1985, someone in California named Wildon Fickett published a science textbook titled "Introduction to Detonation Theory," in which each chapter is headed by an epigraph, the first of which is a few lines from a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay, my favorite poet, and the last two of which are the two halves of a sonnet by Dorothy Sayers, one of my favorite authors.

I may never know why this man chose these poems to adorn a textbook about explosives, but I am so glad to know he did.

[ladysnowangel]

[idratherdreamofjune]

It is absolutely useless to demand insight, imagination and bold action from "the Government", unless we ourselves are sufficiently informed to understand the question and sufficiently enthusiastic to implement our leaders' action at whatever cost to our own interests. If we want wise and inspired policy, we must be wise and inspired ourselves; otherwise we had better cease to be a democracy and hand ourselves over, soul and body, to dictatorship.

Dorothy L. Sayers, Begin Here: A War-Time Essay (1940)

“If the people would not live free or die, it was of no consequence what kind of government they lived under” - Patrick Henry (from memory, sorry if it’s not word-accurate)

There’s another quote somewhere from one of the Founding Fathers about how a democracy will only last as long as the people are virtuous...

[j-august]

And she had not properly worked out the speed of the steam-yacht. One ought to know about these things. Lord Peter would know, of course; he must have sailed in plenty of steam-yachts. It must be nice to be really rich. Anybody who married Lord Peter would be rich, of course. And he was amusing. Nobody could say he would be dull to live with. But the trouble was that you never know what anybody was like to live with except by living with them. It wasn't worth it. Not even to know all about steam-yachts. A novelist couldn't possibly marry all the people from whom she wanted specialised information.

Dorothy L. Sayers, Have His Carcase

[timotey]

Things to be Done: Kick him (P. W.) Well, no, that wouldn't be politic. String him along and see if he is really as stupid as he makes out. (H. V.) All right, but kick him afterwards. (P. W.)

Have His Carcase by Dorothy L. Sayers

[leojurand]

Everything that was alive in him lay in the palm of her hand, like a ripe apple.

—Dorothy L. Sayers, Gaudy Night

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Time and trouble will tame an advanced young woman, but an advanced old woman is uncontrollable by any earthly force.

- Dorothy L Sayers