470 Quotes by Dorothy L. Sayers

To subdue one’s self to one’s own ends might be dangerous, but to subdue one’s self to other people’s ends was dust and ashes. Yet there were those, still more unhappy, who envied even the ashy saltness of those dead sea apples.

That you cannot have Christian principles without Christ is becoming increasingly clear, because their validity as principles depends on Christ’s authority.

A person who can believe all the articles of the Christian faith is not going to boggle over a trifle of adverse evidence.

But to Lord Peter the world presented itself as an entertaining labyrinth of side-issues.

People who seek to serve the community end up falsifying their work, she wrote, whether the work is writing a novel or baking bread, because they are not single- mindedly focused on the task at hand. But if you serve the work – if you perform each task to its utmost perfection – then you will experience the deep satisfaction of craftsmanship and you will end up serving the community more richly than you could have consciously planned.

It’s very inconvenient being a sculptor. It’s like playing the double-bass; one’s so handicapped by one’s baggage.

With tobacco and literature one could face out any situation, provided, of course, that the book was not written in an unknown tongue.

The sin of our times is the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die.

Yet no woman had ever so stirred his blood; she had only to look or speak to make the very bones shake in his body.