The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club (Lord Peter Wimsey #5)

by Dorothy L. Sayers

“Acid man, you are,” said Wimsey. “No reverence, no simple faith or anything of that kind. Do lawyers ever go to heaven?

You admit you’ve met this bloke two or three times, and all you know about him is that he is tall and thin and retired into some unspecified suburb.

A woman, with the same opportunities, would have found out his address and occupation, whether he was married, how many children he had, with their names and what they did for a living, what his favourite author was, what food he liked best, the name of his tailor, dentist and bootmaker, when he knew your grandfather and what he thought of him

“Oh!—may the fellow who invented them fry in oil.

Women are funny. They don’t seem to care half so much about a man’s being honest and faithful—and I’m sure your brother’s all that—as for their opening doors and saying ‘thank you.’

“I’m glad somebody appreciates me.

one should always prefer the probable impossible to the improbable possible.

“I haven’t time and I don’t want the money. Why should I? I’m not a dean or an actress.”

You sit there, looking a perfectly well-bred imbecile, and then in the most underhand way you twist people into doing things they ought to blush for. No wonder you detect things.

And dull men in offices read detective stories.