She suffered much from the adjacent presence of her daughter-in-law, whose misfortune it was to become disagreeable when she was unhappy – perhaps the heaviest curse that can be laid on man, who is born to sorrow.
Sadie, you’re the most tactless girl I ever had the bad luck to meet.’ But I am enthusiastic. I get carried away. I don’t stop to think. I’m just the same with my work. I don’t consider my own feelings; I don’t consider other people’s feelings. I just wade right in and ask for what I want, and I mostly get it.
The sun is shining, and I am in the mood to make mistakes through over-confidence.
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.
My lord, there is an individual – ” “Oh, send him away. I can’t stand any more individuals.
His lordship is in the enjoyment of very low spirits, owing to his inexplicable inability to bend Providence to his own designs.
Unless we do change our whole way of thought about work, I do not think we shall ever escape from the appalling squirrel cage of economic confusion in which we have been madly turning for the last three centuries or so, the cage in which we landed ourselves by acquiescing in a social system based upon Envy and Avarice.
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.
She was a long-necked, long-backed woman, who disciplined her hair and her children. She was never embarrassed, and her anger, though never permitted to be visible, made itself felt the more.
A person who can believe all the articles of the Christian faith is not going to boggle over a trifle of adverse evidence.
The modern boy and girl are certainly taught more subjects – but does that always mean that they actually know more?
Mummy, I think I might understand if only you wouldn’t explain.
Most people don’t associate anythin’ – their ideas just roll about like so many dry peas on a tray, makin’ a lot of noise and goin’ nowhere, but once you begin lettin’ ‘em string their peas into a necklace, it’s goin’ to be strong enough to hang you, what?
Thank God!’ said Wimsey. ‘Where there is a church, there is civilisation.
The departure of the church-going element had induced a more humanitarian atmosphere.
Five minutes’ practice before the glass every day, and you will soon acquire that vacant look so desirable for all rogues, detectives and Government officials.
The vital power of an imaginative work demands a diversity within its unity; and the stronger the diversity, the more massive the unity. Incidentally, this is the weakness of most “edifying” or “propaganda” literature. There is no diversity. The Energy is active only in one part of the whole, and in consequence the wholeness is destroyed and the Power diminished. You cannot, in fact, give God His due without giving the devil his due also.
Boil my brains!” said Lord Peter. “Boil ’em and mash ’em and serve ’em up with butter as a dish of turnips, for it’s damn well all they’re fit for! Look at me!
It has been said, by myself and others, that a love-interest is only an intrusion upon a detective story. But to the characters involved, the detective-interest might well seem an irritating intrusion upon their love-story.
For among my people are found wicked men: they lay wait, as he that setteth snares; they set a trap, they catch men.