Quotes from Sarah Dunant

You would be surprised by the strength of a desperate man.

People do not smile when they are in hell

Johannes Burchard. The only man in Rome whose face remains the same be it perfume or shit under his nose.

Death was, after all, a temporary staging post in a longer journey

He spends the night in prayer. God's voice, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin, tells him what the politician in him already knows: that whatever he might stand to gain from playing one against the other, the prospect of a foreign army marching through Italy can bring only instability and devastation in its wake for all. He is, it seems, the Church's shepherd after all.

Make enemies if you have to- and you will- but always make sure the most powerful stay your friends.

It is the ones who keep you in thrall to more than their snatches who command the houses and the gowns to go with them. And for that they have first to love themselves.

you draw (the painter)

The light shifts around the dais to the scratching of the chalk on the page, each line careful, considered, the result of a singular communion between the eye and the hand.

Children brought up in the company of adults learn better than most the power of solitude.

no one bothered dressing up in priests' robes, for even in chaos hierarchy rules and their cloth wasn't rich enough.

Family. The greatest loyalty after God.

for once life is comfortable, there is nothing to fear, nothing to fight for. Which means in turn that there is nothing to look forward to.

God always seeth man from heaven and the angels report to Him every hour.

such volumes of philosophy had the air of old men about them: venerable but having lost the energy to influence a world that had moved on from them.

Borgia bastard could never be the social equal of a legitimate Medici.

Either you're standing under your haloes, eyes up to heaven, or you're munching apples in their faces and flashing your bush. I'm not even sure they know which one they prefer. The best you can do is choose when you change your costume

As the last chimes die away, a series of contorted male shrieks rise up from somewhere nearby; a late coupling between the sheets or a few early knife thrusts into a belly? He smiles. Such are the sounds of his beloved city, the sounds indeed of the whole of Italy.

After the death of Alfonso, she had vowed she would never trust him again, had believed that she would hate him for ever. Yet almost against her will, he has found his way back into her thoughts, so that there have been moments these last months when she realises that she is missing him: his diamond-sharp energy, his certainty and confidence about everything, and his raw, absolute, undying love.

I know what she is thinking. That she will never have those feelings. And she wants to have them. Oh, how much she wants to...I have seen it before, the way women yearn more for a child when they have fallen in love. It is part of the disease, like the ague that goes with fever. Maybe the real lover's prick goes deep enough to ignite some loning in the womb. Maybe it is the promise of a future, something left over once the passion is spent.

How do ugly men make their way through life?

She has always felt safe inside his arms, this beautiful, powerful elder brother, whom so many fear but who has always been as tender as a lover with her.

beauty is your gift from God and it should be used and not squandered. Study this face as if it were a map of the ocean, your own trade route to the Indies. For it will bring you its own fortune. But always believe what the glass tells you. Because while others will try to flatter you, it has no reason to lie.

Sometimes it is useful to fear something too much, for it makes the real thing quite bearable.