Literary Birthday – 13 June – Dorothy L. Sayers

Dorothy L. Sayers was born 13 June 1893, and died 17 December 1957.

Seven Quotes

I always have a quotation for everything – it saves original thinking.
Nothing about a book is so unmistakable and so irreplaceable as the stamp of the cultured mind. I don’t care what the story is about or what may be the momentary craze for books that appear to have been hammered out by the village blacksmith in a state of intoxication; the minute you get the easy touch of the real craftsman with centuries of civilisation behind him, you get literature.
The great advantage about telling the truth is that nobody ever believes it.
The English language has a deceptive air of simplicity; so have some little frocks; but they are both not the kind of thing you can run up in half an hour with a machine.
Very dangerous things, theories.
To make a deliberate falsification for personal gain is the last, worst depth to which either scholar or artist can descend in work or life.
The one thing which seems to me quite impossible is to take into consideration the kind of book one is expected to write; surely one can only write the book that is there to be written.

Dorothy L. Sayers was an English crime writer, poet, playwright, and translator. She is best known for her mysteries that feature English aristocrat and amateur sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey, and Harriet Vane. The series began with the novel Strong Poison. Sayers considered her translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy to be her best work. She is known as one of the ‘Queens of Crime’ along with Agatha Christie, Margery Allingham, and Ngaio Marsh.