Quotes by Dorothy L. Sayers, Gaudy Night

“I suppose one oughtnt to marry anybody, unless ones prepared to make him a full-time job.Probably not; though there are a few rare people, I believe, who dont look on themselves as jobs but as fell...”

“If it ever occurs to people to value the honour of the mind equally with the honour of the body, we shall get a social revolution of a quite unparalleled sort.”

“The only ethical principle which has made science possible is that the truth shall be told all the time. If we do not penalize false statements made in error, we open up the way for false statement...”

“It's disquieting to reflect that one's dreams never symbolize one's real wishes, but always something Much Worse... If I really wanted to be passionately embraced by Peter, I should dream of dentis...”

“You'd think (losing his job and degree for having made false claims as a researcher) would be a lesson to him," said Miss Hillyard. "It didn't pay, did it? Say he sacrificed his professional honour...”

“Wherever you find a great man, you will find a great mother or a great wife standing behind him -- or so they used to say. It would be interesting to know how many great women have had great father...”

“The rule seemed to be that a great woman must either die unwed ... or find a still greater man to marry her. ... The great man, on the other hand, could marry where he liked, not being restricted t...”

“What'll Geoffrey do when you pull off your First, my child?" demanded Miss Ha”

“A marriage of two independent and equally irritable intelligences seems to me reckless to the point of insanity.”

“I imagine you come across a number of people who are disconcerted by the difference between what you do feel and what they fancy you ought to feel. It is fatal to pay the smallest attention to them.”

“He was being about as protective as a can-opener.”

“Some people's blameless lives are to blame for a good deal.”

“A facility for quotation covers the absence of original thought.”

“She had her image and anything added to that would be mere verse-making. Something might come of it some day. In the meanwhile she had got her mood on to paperand this is the release that all write...”

“The rest were nondescript, as yet undifferentiatedyet nondescripts, thought Harriet, were the most difficult of all human beings to analyze. You scarcely knew they were there, untilbang! Something ...”

“Persons curious in chronology may, if they like, work out from what they already know of the Wimsey family that the action of the book takes place in 1935; but if they do, they must not be querulou...”