Lapillus > Lapillus's Quotes

“Harriet came round this morning to show me her ring – big solitaire ruby – old Abrahams had it cut and set specially to instructions. Poor H. laughed at herself, because when Peter gave it to her yesterday she was looking at him and ten minutes afterwards, when challenged, couldn’t even tell him the colour of the stone. Said she was afraid she never would learn to behave like other people, but Peter had only said it was the first time his features had ever been prized above rubies. Peter joined us at lunch – also Helen, who demanded to see the ring, and said sharply, ‘Good Heavens! I hope it’s insured.’ To do her justice, I can’t see that she could have found anything nastier to say if she’d thought it out with both hands for a fortnight.”
― Dorothy L. Sayers, Busman's Honeymoon

“May I express the hope that the present union may happily exemplify that which we find in a first-class port—strength of body fortified by a first-class spirit and mellowing through many years to a noble maturity. My lord and my lady—your very good health!”
― Dorothy L. Sayers, Busman's Honeymoon

“can’t see that she could have found anything nastier to say if she’d thought it out with both hands for a fortnight. She”
― Dorothy L. Sayers, Busman's Honeymoon

“his thoughts revolving silently in this squirrel-cage of mystification.”
― Dorothy L. Sayers, Busman's Honeymoon

“Ah! I have never regretted Paradise Lost since I discovered that it contained no eggs-and-bacon.”
― Dorothy L. Sayers, Busman's Honeymoon

“What was that you called me?’ ‘Oh, Peter – how absurd! I wasn’t thinking.’ ‘What did you call me?’ ‘My lord!’ ‘The last two words in the language I ever expected to get a kick out of. One never values a thing till one’s earned it, does one? Listen, heart’s lady – before I’ve done I mean to be king and emperor.”
― Dorothy L. Sayers, Busman's Honeymoon

“Foster never did anything that was not absolutely correct; this, perhaps, was his real weakness, for it meant that he lacked imagination, both in his work and in handling the men under him.”
― Dorothy L. Sayers, Busman's Honeymoon

“His lordship is in the enjoyment of very low spirits, owing to his inexplicable inability to bend Providence to his own designs.”
― Dorothy L. Sayers, Busman's Honeymoon

“I like to crawl away and hide in a corner."
"Well," he said, with a transitory gleam of himself, "you're my corner and I've come to hide.”
― Dorothy L. Sayers, Busman's Honeymoon

“Even if it is the twilight of the world, before night falls I will sleep in your arms.’ . . .”
― Dorothy L. Sayers, Busman's Honeymoon

“Experience has taught me," said Peter (...) "that no situation finds Bunter unprepared. That he should have procured The Times this morning by the simple expedient of asking the milkman to request the postmistress to telephone to Broxford and have it handed to the 'bus-conductor to be dropped at the post-office and brought up by the little girl who delivers the telegrams is a trifling example of his resourceful energy.”
― Dorothy L. Sayers, Busman's Honeymoon

“He remembered having said to his uncle (with a solemn dogmatism better befitting a much younger man): "Surely it is possible to love with the head as well as the heart." Mr. Delagardie had replied, somewhat drily: "No doubt; so long as you do not end by thinking with your entrails instead of your brain.”
― Dorothy L. Sayers, Busman's Honeymoon

“Heaven deliver us, what's a poet? Something that can't go to bed without making a song about it.”
― Dorothy L. Sayers, Busman's Honeymoon

“But that's men all over ... Poor dears, they can't help it. They haven't got logical minds.”
― Dorothy L. Sayers, Busman's Honeymoon

“We've got to laugh or break our hearts in this damnable world.”
― Dorothy L. Sayers, Busman's Honeymoon

“For God's sake, let's take the word 'possess' and put a brick round its neck and drown it ... We can't possess one another. We can only give and hazard all we have.”
― Dorothy L. Sayers, Busman's Honeymoon