Dorothy L. Sayers Quotes

Death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate.

In the nature of man we find three principle causes of quarrel. First, competition; second diffidence; thirdly, glory.

If you are a human being, you might as well face it. You are going to rub a lot of people the wrong way.

From time immemorial, people have talked about peace without achieving it. Do we simply lack enough experience? Though we talk peace, we wage war. Sometimes we even wage war in the name of peace. . . . War may be too much a part of history to be eliminated—ever.

You have family", Bob said. "You have a wife who hates you. Kids who are furious with you. A brother and sister who make you insane. And a nephew who used to be kind of a drip but apparently is not so much of a drip now. That's called family".

there were crimes and quarrels, alongside kindness and cooperation; there were people who loved each other and people who did not; it was a human world.

It is easier to tell a story of how people wound one another than of what binds them together.

Jen and I were accustomed to our father's last-will-and-testament diction, and were at times free to interrupt Atticus for a translation when it was beyond our understanding.

There are doubtless certain unworldly people who are indifferent to money. I myself have never met one.

One must know that war is common, justice is strife, and everything happens according to strife and necessity.

Most human things are full of conflict and ambivalence, not ease and simplicity. The world has grown increasingly fundamentalist, and the parameters of discussion have become narrowed. People, when they're fearful, are vulnerable to certainty in rhetoric.

There are ... two kinds of people in this world, those who long to be understood and those who long to be misunderstood. It is the irony of life that neither is gratified.

I sometimes think that the American story is the one about the reading of the will.

Death means a lot of money, honey. Death can really make you look like a star.

Practically everybody is suing everybody else these days.

This time we aren't fighting the Yankees, we're fighting our friends. But remember this, no matter how bitter things get, they're still our friends and this is still our home.

War was then no longer this noble and unified outburst of souls in love with glory that he had imagined from Napoleon's proclamations.

What I found interesting is that it's human nature to have a family.

At the end of your life, you cannot take a penny with you. So what is the object of money if you can't take it with you?

We are not one people. We are two peoples. We are a people for Freedom and a people for Slavery. Between the two, conflict is inevitable.

People's lives are forever controlled by two emotions: fear and greed.

Some people say "if we split up,we can cover more ground"-with blood

It seems to be almost a law of human nature that it is easier for people to agree on a negative program - on the hatred of an enemy, on the envy of those better off - than on any positive task.

Where there is money, there is fighting.

Of course, money will do after its kind, and will steadily work to unspiritualize and unchurch the people to whom it was bequeathed.