“I imagine you come across a number of people who are disconcerted by the difference between what you do feel and what they fancy you ought to feel. It is fatal to pay the smallest attention to them.”“Yes,” said Harriet, “but I am one of them. I disconcert myself very much. I never know what I do feel.”“I don’t think that matters, provided one doesn’t try to persuade one’s self into appropriate feelings.”

English crime novelist, playwright, translator and critic

Dorothy Leigh Sayers was an English crime novelist, playwright, translator and critic. She is best known for her Lord Peter Wimsey detective novels, which helped shape the golden age of British detective fiction. Beyond her mysteries, Sayers wrote plays, translated works, and produced criticism with a sharp, exacting style. Her writing moved across popular fiction and literary argument, and her reputation rests on both her storytelling and her clear, disciplined prose.