Dorothy Quotes

Go to the Martin Beck Theatre and watch Katherine Hepburn run the gamut of emotions from A to B. ~ Dorothy Parker

Chancellor said, 'She is concerned for your future.'

'She is concerned for her dog and her cat,' Lymond said. 'It is a Somerville failing. ~ Dorothy Dunnett

If Robert Benchley and Dorothy Parker had teamed up to write epic fantasy, something like Split Heirs might have resulted. ~ John DeChancie

It is a formidable list of jobs: the whole of the spinning industry, the whole of the dyeing industry, the whole of the weaving industry. The whole catering industry and - which would not please Lady Astor, perhaps - the whole of the nation's brewing and distilling. All the preserving, pickling and bottling industry, all the bacon-curing. And (since in those days a man was often absent from home for months together on war or business) a very large share in the management of landed estates. Here are the women's jobs - and what has become of them? They are all being handled by men. It is all very well to say that woman's place is the home - but modern civilisation has taken all these pleasant and profitable activities out of the home, where the women looked after them, and handed them over to big industry, to be directed and organised by men at the head of large factories. Even the dairy-maid in her simple bonnet has gone, to be replaced by a male mechanic in charge of a mechanical milking plant. ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

You have only to lift your hand,' Thorkel Fostri said. And after a moment, 'What else were you born for?'
'Why not happiness, like other men? Thorfinn said.
'You have that,' said his foster-father. 'But if you try to trap it, it will change. Why do you resist? It is your right.'
'I resist because it is no use resisting,' Thorfinn said. 'Do you not think that is unfair? I shall be King because I was King; and I shall die because I did die; and did I remember them, I could even tell what are the three ways it might befall me. ~ Dorothy Dunnett

While time lasts there will always be a future, and that future will hold both good and evil, since the world is made to that mingled pattern. ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

You have touched the Eagle-Man! ... Well, you may have done more than just touch ...
Dorothy Whitecloud from The Great Northern Coven ~ Bruce Jenvey

Perhaps the forces of winged retribution. The prophet Elijah being fed to the ravens. Like Baida, I have killed my three pigeons.'

'Two,' Adam said.

'Two died instead of Vishnevetsky. One died instead of my brother. Long ago. Attar, the Persian poet, saw the destiny of souls as a flight of birds across the seven valleys of Seeking, Love, Knowledge, Independence, Unity, Stupefaction and Annihilation, before at last being lost in the divine Ocean and thenceforth happy. A charming, if sterile, conceit. Next time, the bird may escape,' Lymond said. 'Happy pigeon. Next time, the archer may die. ~ Dorothy Dunnett

Beautiful was in the way that she moved and spoke. Beautiful was an action as well as a description. ~ Danielle Paige

The modern boy and girl are certainly taught more subjects - but does that always mean that they actually know more? ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

There is a saying of my adoptive ancestors. Though he performs a miracle, or two miracles, if he refuses the third miracle, it is not as profit to him. I shall dine at the Court of France tonight, and in the course of that evening, acquire the royal consent for O'LiamRoe and myself to stay as long as we please. For, to be perfectly frank," said Lymond, gently reflective, "to be perfectly frank, I can't wait to sink my teeth into the most magnificent, the most scholarly and the most dissolute Court in Europe, which so lightly slid out The O'LiamRoe, Chief of the Name, on his kneecaps and whiskers. ~ Dorothy Dunnett

Well. On which aspect of our ill-advised doings are we about to lecture each other? I have very little to say. As I recall, I exhausted the matter on several other occasions. ~ Dorothy Dunnett

They were one unto the other, a circle whirling evenly, effortlessly, endlessly. He knew beauty and the intensity of a dream and he was meshed in a womb he called happiness. He did not think: This must come to an end in time. A circle had no beginning or end; it existed. He did not allow thought to enter the hours that he waited for her, laved in memory of her presence. He seldom left the apartment in those days. In the outside world there was time; in time, there was impatience. Better to remain within the dream. ~ Dorothy B. Hughes

For a few political turncoats there is real excuse. One can hardly blame those whom one ministry have seen fit to throw overboard for having the strength to swim to the other side. ~ Dorothy Nevill

[Robin Stewart] was your man. True for you, you had withdrawn the crutch from his sight, but still it should have been there in your hand, ready for him. For you are a leader-don't you know it? I don't, surely, need to tell you?-And that is what leadership means. It means fortifying the fainthearted and giving them the two sides of your tongue while you are at it. It means suffering weak love and schooling it till it matures. It means giving up you privicies, your follies and your leasure. It means you can love nothing and no one too much, or you are no longer a leader, you are led. ~ Dorothy Dunnett

No one outside of our family unit would ever guess that away from prying eyes, we were systematically tearing ourselves apart. Away from the outside world, everyone in our family started to fall to pieces, and never really recovered. Even though our times together are always fun and laughter-filled, the closeness we once shared is gone. In its place is guilt, regret, the ability to say the nastiest things and, for the longest minute on earth, mean every word of them ~ Dorothy Koomson

Every girl wants to be Dorothy Gale or maybe Glinda. I never wanted to be the tornado. ~ Emery Lord

Hollywood money isn't money. It's congealed snow, melts in your hand, and there you are. ~ Dorothy Parker

I'm glad I don't know everything, Dorothy, and that there still are things in both nature and in wit for me to marvel at. ~ L. Frank Baum

For those of us with introverted tendencies, many think that hard work and good results is what matters most. It would be great if that were the case, but it's wrong to believe that to be true. Superb performance on the job is important, but if you don't have a supportive network, you're in for some big disappointments. We speak to people continuously who suffer from the missing component of good networking in their career path. Those people find that their missed opportunities or promotions are demoralizing and certainly frustrating. ~ Dorothy Tannahill-Moran

Forgiveness does not wipe away the consequences of the sin. The consequences are borne by somebody. ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

Miss Climpson," said Lord Peter, "is a manifestation of the wasteful way in which this country is run. Look at electricity, Look at water-power. Look at the tides. Look at the sun. Millions of power units being given off into space every minute. Thousands of old maids, simply bursting with useful energy, forced by our stupid social system into hydros and hotels and communities and hostels and posts as companions, where their magnificent gossip-powers and units of inquisitiveness are allowed to dissipate themselves or even become harmful to the community, while the ratepayers' money is spent on getting work for which these women are providentially fitted, inefficiently carried out by ill-equipped policemen like you. ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

I find myself getting so upset because I was never able to be a good mother for my daughter or a good grandmother for my granddaughter because I was always so sick. I only hope that I can live long enough to see my granddaughter graduate. ~ Dorothy Moore

Modern war is fought by a number of strong, sweaty horsemen with constipation, who have their eyes on power, on wealth and on glory, and who obey the rules just when it pleases them. ~ Dorothy Dunnett

Men would fight well for their pay, but they would die for an aspiration. ~ Dorothy Dunnett

You do not I will make an end of you, as I did of the Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow. Dorothy followed her through many of the beautiful rooms in her castle ~ L. Frank Baum

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

Good God, here am I with stockings in either hand, panting towards restitution. I merely require you to keep my soul out of the general conversation.'

'And your brother's soul?' said James Stewart. He was drawling again.

'I understood,' said Lymond, 'that you had that in hand. ~ Dorothy Dunnett

Once I was coming down a street in Beverly Hills and I saw a Cadillac about a block long, and out of the side window was a wonderfully slinky mink, and an arm, and at the end of the arm a hand in a white suede glove wrinkled around the wrist, and in the hand was a bagel with a bite out of it. ~ Dorothy Parker

A freshman had to wear a black turtleneck sweater, corduroy trousers, and a little black cap called a 'dink' on the back of his head," he wrote in his autobiography, Confessions of a Maverick ~ Dorothy Wickenden

We don't criticize. Criticism is an enemy. You've got to make loving, positive suggestions. ~ Dorothy Sarnoff

I was consumed by a selfishness and arrogance that I didn't dare let go of until I found a new persona to hide behind. ~ Dorothy Koomson

My own dear love, he is all my world -
And I wish I'd never met him. ~ Dorothy Parker

People is themselves when they are children, and not again till they know they'm dying. ~ Dorothy Richardson

Acrostics in French or acrostics in Hebrew were still Greek to him. ~ Dorothy Dunnett

As everyone keeps insisting, parentage doesn't matter. Love him for what he is. ~ Dorothy Dunnett

The sixth deadly sin is named by the church acedia or sloth. In the world it calls itself tolerance; but in hell it is called despair. It is the accomplice of the other sins and their worst punishment. It is the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, loves nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive only because there is nothing it would die for. We have known it far too well for many years. The only thing perhaps that we have not known about it is that it is a mortal sin. ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

I will say here and now that I have never discovered, nor can I see, any reasonable use or excuse for the " waynee, weedee, weekee " convention. It is not merely that I have a profound sympathy with one of my friends who says he just cannot believe that Caesar was the kind of man to talk in that kind of way. Caesar may, indeed, have done so, but what then ? ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

Kate said, her eyes very large, 'I find your rudeness abominable and your politeness obnoxious but my goodness, Francis Crawford, what terrifies me more than a jungle of tigers is the moment when you look worried. ~ Dorothy Dunnett

Gossip ... is only fiction produced by non-professionals. ~ Dorothy Canfield Fisher

He was so crooked, you could have used his spine for a safety-pin. ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

And upon his return, Gherkins, who had always considered his uncle as a very top-hatted sort of person, actually saw him take from his handkerchief-drawer an undeniable automatic pistol.
It was at this point that Lord Peter was apotheosed from the state of Quite Decent Uncle to that of Glorified Uncle ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

Dorothy's coming up. I think she's tight."
"That's great." I picked up my bathrobe. "I was afraid I was going to have to get some sleep."
She was bending over looking for her slippers. "Don't be such an old fluff. You can sleep all day." She found her slippers and stood up in them. "Is she really as afraid of her mother as she says?"
"If she's got any sense. Mimi's poison."
Nora screwed up her dark eyes at me and asked slowly: "What are you holding out on me?"
"Oh, dear," I said, " I was hoping I wouldn't have to tell you. Dorothy is really my daughter. I didn't know what I was doing, Nora. It was spring in Venice and I was so young and there was a moon over the ... "
"Be funny. Don't you want something to eat? ~ Dashiell Hammett

A philosophy of work is essential if we would be whole men, holy men, healthy men, joyous men. A certain amount of goods is necessary for a man to lead a good life, and we have to make that kind of society where it is easier for men to be good. ~ Dorothy Day

I love to read, but I didn't know how I could keep up with my eyes, ... But I remembered that the library had books on tape, so I started listening to them. You wouldn't believe how much they have brought to my life. ~ Dorothy Bryant

Paradoxical as it may seem, to believe in youth is to look backward; to look forward we must believe in age. ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

I had no illusions at all that I was beautiful, pretty or even able to attract the right sort of attention from men ~ Dorothy Koomson

LINSCOTT: Well, I don't like it. Man works damn hard, leaves his wife all his money, and some pretty boy comes along and gets it. Sometimes I think those old East Indians had the right idea about widows. Cremate the husbands and burn up the wives along with them.
CONNIE: Maybe it would be simpler to burn up the money. ~ Dorothy Parker

Then if my friendships break and bend, There's little need to cry The while I know that every foe Is faithful till I die. ~ Dorothy Parker

The only way to live in any true security is to live so close to the bottom that when you fall you do not have far to drop, you do not have much to lose. ~ Dorothy Day

You may concentrate on appearances all through the rest of your house, but in the bedroom comfort should be supreme. I think that bedrooms should also be very intimate rooms-they should express your personal preferences in every way ... Of all the rooms in the house your bedroom is yours. ~ Dorothy Draper

Peter: Oy!
Harriet: Hullo!
Peter: I just wanted to ask whether you'd given any further thought to that suggestion about marrying me.
Harriet (sarcastically) : I suppose you were thinking how delightful it would be to go through life together like this?
Peter: Well, not quite like this. Hand in hand was more my idea.
Harriet: What is that in your hand?
Peter: A dead starfish.
Harriet: Poor fish!
Peter: No ill-feeling, I trust?
Harriet: Oh, dear no. ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

I'd spent so long trying to fit in,trying to be someone i wasn't,that i had no idea who i was any more. ~ Dorothy Koomson

If you are going to do something that will annoy people, tell them about it afterwards; then they will only be annoyed that you have done it, and won't have all the exasperation of trying to stop you. ~ Dorothy Cottrell

The black woman had had to struggle against being a person of great strength. ~ Dorothy Height

They play at gods,' said Piedar Dooly, and spat. 'French and English alike. Gods out of hell would you say, harrowing green land for their tennis courts and dressing lapdogs in treasure that would keep half Ireland in bread for a year. The heroes of Tara would have put them face to schisty face and used them for millstones. ~ Dorothy Dunnett

If we did not know all His retorts by heart, if we had not taken the sting out of them by incessant repetition in the accents of the pulpit, and if we had not somehow got it into our heads that brains were rather reprehnsible, we should reckon Him among the greatest wits of all time. Nobody else, in three brief years, has achieved such an output of epigram. ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

The mystery of poverty is that by sharing in it, making ourselves poor in giving to others, we increase our knowledge of and belief in love. ~ Dorothy Day

his thoughts revolving silently in this squirrel-cage of mystification. ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

A girl's best friend is her mutter. ~ Dorothy Parker

If television's a babysitter, the Internet is a drunk librarian who won't shut up. ~ Dorothy Gambrell

And the effect on yourself?' Guthrie said.

For a short time, Lymond was silent. Then he said, 'I had some strengths, which have grown. I had some weaknesses, which have gone.'

'That is true,' Adam Blacklock said. Slumped between floor and wall, he had leaned his tired head on the panelling; his face, with its thin scar, was turned without expression to Lymond. 'You have become a machine.'

'No,' said Philippa. 'That is not so.'

'But that is so,' said Lymond. 'How could I do my work otherwise? ~ Dorothy Dunnett

I have rather an unwholesome weakness for policemen. ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

Never give anyone the satisfaction of denying you something you need, and for that, what you have to do is to learn to need nothing. Starve the wanting part of you.
Dorothy Allison,
"Mama"
Trash ~ Dorothy Allison

You will know your vocation by the joy that it brings you. You will know. You will know when it's right. ~ Dorothy Day

For years and years, I convinced myself that I was unbreakable, an animal with an animal strength or something not human at all. Me, I told people, I take damage like a wall, a brick wall that never falls down, never feels anything, never flinches or remembers. I am one woman but I carry in my body all the stories I have ever been told, women I have known, women who have taken damage until they tell themselves they can feel no pain at all. ~ Dorothy Allison

Nobody wants to kiss when they are hungry. ~ Dorothy Dix

Recreation is nothing but a change of work-an occupation for the hands by those who live by their brains, or for the brains by those who live by their hands. ~ Dorothy Thompson

Dorothy wants to talk to you. Don't ask her to eat with us."
When Nora returned from the telephone she had a look in her eye. "Now what's up?" I asked.
"Nothing. Just 'how are you' and all that."
I said: "if you're lying to the old man, God'll punish you. ~ Dashiell Hammett

The thing she valued high above the rest, was his strength of character. Stephen Nicolson had the courage of his convictions: he would never let his lover bend his will, and Dorothy liked that; there was a danger, she thought, in the sort of loving that made people act against type. ~ Kate Morton

I never cease to wonder at my luck in having for my sister the woman who, more than any other woman in America, possesses all the qualities of true greatness. ~ Dorothy Gish

Are you implying,' said Philippa coldly, 'that I enjoyed being brought up surrounded by eunuchs?'

'No,' said Lymond. 'But I expect you enjoyed it more than the eunuchs did. ~ Dorothy Dunnett

Like many a better one before me, I have gone down under the force of numbers, under the books and books and books that keep coming out and coming out and coming out, shoals of them, spates of them, flash floods of them, too blame many books, and no sign of an end. ~ Dorothy Parker

You're going to declare a rest period?' asked Jerott. Leisure, with Gabriel there, seemed too good to be true.

'Rumour being what it is, I imagine it will have declared itself by now,' Lymond said. 'Yes. We shall take three days from our labours to relax. Provided Sir Graham understands that by midday tomorrow St Mary's will be empty and all the men at arms and half the officers whoring in Peebles.' In the half-dark you could guess at Gabriel's smile.

'Do you think I don't know human nature?' he said. 'They are bound by no vows. But as they learn to respect you, they will do as you do.'

'That's what we're all afraid of,' said Jerott; and there was a ripple of laughter and a flash of amusement, he saw, from Lymond himself. ~ Dorothy Dunnett

While the vast majority of hackers may be disinclined towards violence, it would only take a few to turn cyber terrorism into reality. ~ Dorothy Denning

No, what Great Aunt Winifred was suffering from was the persecution every happily single woman suffers: the predictable social condemnation of her independence and childlessness. Dorothy reminded herself of what she'd learned during a university course on feminist history (with a strong Marxist slant): spinsters are a threat to patriarchy. ~ Tobsha Learner

I wasn't offering her pity," Mrs. Caswell said impatiently. "Tragedies don't interest me, tragedies and heartbreaks are all alike, what matters is how a person meets them, how they survive them. Given the inevitability of losses and disappointments in life, that's where the challenge is and the uniqueness. I was offering her sympathy. ~ Dorothy Gilman

Fools make news, and wise men carry it. ~ Dorothy Dunnett

I can tell from the glint in her eyes that she's at least an acquaintance of Dorothy. ~ David Levithan

Freedom is not worth fighting for if it means no more than license for everyone to get as much as he can for himself. ~ Dorothy Canfield Fisher

Survival is the least of my desires. ~ Dorothy Allison

Every year, back comes Spring, with nasty little birds yapping their fool heads off and the ground all mucked up with plants. ~ Dorothy Parker

You bloody little dictator,' he said. 'You're exactly like Kate. ~ Dorothy Dunnett

A hangover is the wrath of grapes. ~ Dorothy Parker

I have a feeling that someone is going to be malicious, and we may as well set them a standard. Shall we go in, lewd and rude, and provoke them? ~ Dorothy Dunnett

I have long since come to believe that people never mean half of what they say, and that it is best to disregard their talk and judge only their actions. ~ Dorothy Day

He lingered at the door, and said, 'The Lion wants courage, the Tin Man a heart, and the Scarecrow brains. Dorothy wants to go home. What do you want?' ...
She couldn't say forgiveness, not to Liir. She started to say 'a soldier,' to make fun of his mooning affections over the guys in uniform. But realizing even as she said it that he would be hurt, she caught herself halfway, and in the end what came out of her mouth surprised them both.
She said, 'A soul-'
He blinked at her. ~ Gregory Maguire

Those who first introduced compulsory education into American life knew exactly why children should go to school and learn to read: to save their souls ... Consistent with this goal, the first book written and printed for children in America was titled Spiritual Milk for Boston Babes in either England, drawn from the Breasts of both Testaments for their Souls' Nourishment. ~ Dorothy H Cohen

'Not spoiling' a child means trying to break that child's spirit. ~ Dorothy Rowe

It's not the innocent young things that need gentle handling
it's the ones that have been frightened and hurt. ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

It's when we're given choice that we sit with the gods and design ourselves. ~ Dorothy Gilman

Friendships grow from small acts of kindness ~ Dorothy Koomson

Immoderation, Mariotta, is a thief of money and intestinal joy, but who'd check it? Not I. Here I am, weeping soft tears of myrrh, to prove it. ~ Dorothy Dunnett

Parents must begin to discover their children as individuals of developing tastes and views and so help them be, and see, themselves as thinking, feeling people. It is far too easy for a middle-years child to absorb an over-simplified picture of himself as a sloppy, unreliable, careless, irresponsible, lazy creature and not much more
an attitude toward himself he will carry far beyond these years. ~ Dorothy H Cohen

Never try to look into both eyes at the same time. Switch your gaze from one eye to the other. That signals warmth and sincerity. ~ Dorothy Sarnoff

You invited them without Lymond knowing?' said Danny Hislop. He wriggled into the circle. 'Can I be there when he hears about it? ~ Dorothy Dunnett

But
my dear, my heart is BROKEN! I have seen the perfect Peter Wimsey. Height, voice, charm, smile, manner, outline of features, everything
and he is
THE CHAPLAIN OF BALLIOL!! What is the use of anything? ...
I am absolutely shattered by this Balliol business. Such waste
why couldn't he have been an actor? ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

In the morning when Mrs. Pollifax awoke she realized at once that a fateful day was beginning. She lay and thought about this dispassionately, almost wonderingly, because to every life there eventually came a moment when one had to accept the fact that the shape, the pattern, the direction of the future was entirely out of one's hands, to be decided unalterably by chance, by fate or by God. There was nothing to do but accept, and from this to proceed, doing the very best that could be done. ~ Dorothy Gilman

It hurt so much when I lost my mother, I know how it feels.' Hilary told a friend whose mother had recently passed away. 'I will never get over it.' In a 2015 interview with ABC News, Hillary got emotional when she mentioned her mother, Dorothy Rodham, who died in 2011. Dorothy grew up in poverty and at eight years old she was sent from Chicago to California to live with her grandparents after her parents divorced. 'She told me every day you've got to get up and fight for what you believe in, no matter how hard it is. I think about her a lot, I miss her a lot. I wish she were her with me. ~ Kate Andersen Brower

It's very good of you
"
"No, no, not at all. It's my hobby. Not proposing to people, I don't mean, but investigating things. Well, cheer-frightfully-ho and all that. And I'll call again, if I may."
"I will give the footman orders to admit you," said the prisoner, gravely, "you will always find me at home. ~ Dorothy L. Sayers