Wimsey's Quotes

#1. Parker looked distressed. He had confidence in Wimsey's judgment, and, in spite of his own interior certainty, he felt shaken.
"My dear man, where's the flaw in [this case]?"
"There isn't one ... There's nothing wrong about it at all, except that the girl's innocent.

Dorothy L. Sayers

#2. The significance of man is that he is insignificant and is aware of it.

Carl L. Becker

#3. How can I find the words? Poets have taken them all and left me with nothing to say or do"
"Except to teach me for the first time what they meant.

Dorothy L. Sayers

#4. Bunter came with me in the role of a friend. A role he has always played to perfection."
"It does not require dissimulation, my lord," said Bunter.
"Thank you," said Peter.

Jill Paton Walsh

#5. Actually, I've never thought myself as being a particularly hard worker. I've always worked, and I guess my mind is busy all the time. I've been in a lot of things just because of my own intellectual curiosity.

Sam Wyly

#6. Just because it's the biggest secret in the history of the world doesn't make it any less true.

Gina Damico

#7. I had learned so much about the world that I had decided to withdraw from it.

Jeff VanderMeer

#8. It's just fun to go out and compete. It doesn't matter what your record is or what the other team's record is. You're playing in an NFL game, and you are out there competing with great players.

Jamie Martin

#9. Do you know how to pick a lock?"
"Not in the least, I'm afraid."
"I often wonder what we go to school for," said Wimsey.

Dorothy L. Sayers

#10. I say - I don't mind betting this is the most popular thing Campbell ever did. Nothing in life became him like the leaving of it, eh, what?

Dorothy L. Sayers

#11. And you, Mary, if you must run off to London, why do it in that unfinished manner, so that I was left without the car, and couldn't catch anything until the midnight train at Northallerton? It's so much better to do things neatly and properly, even stupid things.

Dorothy L. Sayers

#12. There is dignity in suffering; nobility in pain; but failure is a salted wound, that burns and burns again!

Woody Allen

#13. She reflected she must be completely besotted with Peter, if his laughter could hallow an aspidistra.

Dorothy L. Sayers

#14. Nobody minds coarseness, but one must draw the line at cruelty


-Lord Peter Wimsey

Dorothy L. Sayers

#15. Lord Peter Wimsey stretched himself luxuriously between the sheets provided by the Hotel Meurice.

Dorothy L. Sayers

#16. WHAT IN THE WORLD, Wimsey, are you doing in this Morgue? demanded Captain Fentiman, flinging aside the Evening Banner with the air of a man released from an irksome duty.

Dorothy L. Sayers

#17. Thank God!' said Wimsey. 'Where there is a church, there is civilisation.

Dorothy L. Sayers

#18. I have the most ill-regulated memory. It does those things which it ought not to do and leaves undone the things it ought to have done. But it has not yet gone on strike altogether.

Dorothy L. Sayers

#19. His [Lord Peter's] long, amiable face looked as if it had generated spontaneously from his top hat, as white maggots breed from Gorgonzola.

Dorothy L. Sayers

#20. Bunter: "I assure your lordship that for the firsttime in my existence I regret that I have made no practical study of campanology."
Wimsey: "I am always so delighted to find that there are things you cannot do.

Dorothy L. Sayers

#21. Like all male creatures Wimsey was a simple soul at bottom.

Dorothy L. Sayers

#22. If I do marry, I'll expect a pretty serious dowry. I'm talking goats, pigs, chickens, the works.

Dov Davidoff

#23. The Lord has made us to be creative, and the sense of achievement will help to lift our spirits.

Shirley Corder

#24. We've got to laugh or break our hearts in this damnable world.

Dorothy L. Sayers

#25. My idea is that Miss Vane didn't do it," said Wimsey. "I dare say that's an idea which has already occurred to you, but with the weight of my great mind behind it, no doubt it strikes the imagination more forcibly.

Dorothy L. Sayers

#26. I didn't mind thinking you were a murderer," said Lady Mary spitefully, "but I do mind you being such an ass.

Dorothy L. Sayers

#27. I sleuth, you know. For a hobby. Harmless outlet for natural inquisitiveness, don't you see, which might otherwise strike inward and produce introspection an' suicide. Very natural, healthy pursuit
not too strenuous, not too sedentary; trains and invigorates the mind.

Dorothy L. Sayers

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

Dorothy L. Sayers

#29. I may die young, but at least I'll die smart.... If you can't be seven feet tall, be seven feet smart...Best advice I can ever give you.

Ziad K. Abdelnour

#30. Thank you. This line of salt is the beach. And this piece of bread is a rock at low-water level.' Wimsey twitched his chair closer to the table. 'And this salt-spoon,' he said, with childlike enjoyment, 'can be the body.

Dorothy L. Sayers