Dorothy L. Sayers citations

Page 3

“Miss de Vine: [In response to Harriet Vane's, "But you say you don't despise those who make some other person their job?"] "Far from despising them, I think they are dangerous."”

“The Church's approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confined to exhorting him not to be drunk and disorderly in his leisure hours, and to come to church on Sundays. What the Church should be telling him is this: that the very first demand that his religion makes upon him is that he should make good tables. Church by all means, and decent forms of amusement, certainly—but what use is all that if in the very center of his life and occupation he is insulting God with bad carpentry? No crooked table legs or ill-fitting drawers ever came out of the carpenter's shop at Nazareth. Nor, if they did, could anyone believe that they were made by the same hand that made Heaven and earth.”

“Harriet Vane: If anybody does marry you it will be for the pleasure of hearing you talk piffle.”

“Lord Peter Wimsey: It’s my belief most of us would only be too pleased to chuck these community hysterics if the beastly newspapers didn’t run it for all it’s worth. However, it won’t do to say so. (on Remembrance Day observances)”

“Lord Peter Wimsey: The great advantage about telling the truth is that nobody ever believes it – that is at the bottom of the ψευδῆ λέγειν ὡς δεῖ.”

“Mr. Ingleby: You don't need an argument for buying butter. It's a natural, human instinct.”

“Lord Peter Wimsey: Your mother, Bunter? Oh, I never knew you had one. I always thought you just sort of came along already-made, so it were.”

“Freddie Arbuthnot*: "…mild old gentlemen do sometimes break out into a spot of tut-tuttery."”

“Sir Impey Biggs: Lawyers enjoy a little mystery, you know. Why, if everybody came forward and told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth straight out, we should all retire to the workhouse.”

“What is repugnant to every human being is to be reckoned always as a member of a class and not as an individual person.”

“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.”