Gaudy Night Quotes

“There is only one kind of wisdom that has any social value, and that is the knowledge of one's own limitations.”
― Dorothy Sayers

“Isn't the writing of good prose an emotional excitement?"
"Yes, of course it is. At least, when you get the thing dead right and know it's dead right, there's no excitement like it. It's marvelous. It makes you feel like God on the Seventh Day – for a bit, anyhow.”
― Dorothy Sayers

“Detachment is a rare virtue, and very few people find it lovable, either in themselves or in others. If you ever find a person who likes you in spite of it-still more, because of it-that liking has very great value, because it is perfectly sincere, and because, with that person, you will never need to be anything but sincere yourself.”
― Dorothy L. Sayers

“She could have made a much better thing of that, if she had not been afraid of giving herself away. What hampered her was this sense of being in the middle of things, too close to things, pressed upon and bullied by reality. If she could succeed in standing aside from herself she would achieve self-confidence and a better control.”
― Dorothy Sayers

“The incident had that rich savor of the ludicrous which neither pity nor charity can destroy. Unfortunately, she could not in decency share it with anybody; she could only enjoy it in lonely ecstasies of mirth.”
― Dorothy Sayers

“She went to bed thinking more about another person than about herself. This goes to prove that even minor poetry may have its practical uses.”
― Dorothy Sayers

“Harriet grinned at Betty Armstrong, hearing the familiar academic wrangle begin. Before ten minutes had passed, somebody had introduced the word "values." An hour later they were still at it. Finally the Bursar was heard to quote: "God made the integers; all else is the work of man." "Oh, bother!" cried the Dean. "Do let's keep mathematics out of it. And physics. I cannot cope with them.”
― Dorothy Sayers

“Do you find it easy to get drunk on words?" "So easy that, to tell you the truth, I am seldom perfectly sober." Lord Peter Wimsey in Gaudy Night”
― Dorothy L. Sayers, The Complete Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries

“How fleeting are all human passions, compared to the massive continuity of ducks.”
― Dorothy Sayers

“it had opened up to her the vision of an old desire long obscured by a forest of irrelevant fancies”
― Dorothy Sayers