Quotes from Dorothy Dunnett

Here you have a hawk of the lure, not of the fist. He will not come to you. If you would have him, you must lay your heart upon your hawking-glove; and feed it to him.

Something comes out of every voyage,' said the other man sharply. 'Out of every bloody fruitless endeavour. All the striving after the unknowable. The unattainable, the search for Athor, the creative force, rolled into a circle. You with your quest; I with my care-ridden Emperor; Sir Thomas, sitting before the fire, his bowels burning before him. We add something. If we didn't add something, there would be no object in it.

Why?' said Philippa. 'For suffering what you have suffered for three months?' And felt the veils rend about her, for she had broken the unwritten law: it must not be uttered. It must not be uttered, or they could not bear the pain, mirrored over and over.

I have lost you before I have found you.

Oh, Marigold!" Lymond spoke plaintively. "A silken tongue, a heart of cruelty. Don't berate us. We're only poor scoundrels—vagabonds—scraps of society; unlettered and untaught.

We met once when you were a boy, at Midculter.' He paused. 'You are not like your brother.' 'No,' Crawford said. He gave his hand another shake and then loosed it with apparent reluctance. 'Richard will never be whipped at a cart-arse for bawdry. I don't know whether you notice, but he wears nothing but mockado and fustian. The graveyard at Culter is full of pauperized mercers.

Lymond is back." It was known soon after the Sea-Catte reached Scotland from Campvere with an illicit cargo and a man she should not have carried. "Lymond is in Scotland." It was said by busy men preparing for war against England, with contempt, with disgust; with a side-slipping look at one of their number. "I hear the Lord Culter's young brother is back." Only sometimes a woman's voice would say it with a different note, and then laugh a little.

Do you swim? Hunt? Wrestle? I see. Can you use a crossbow? Your longest shot? Can you count? Read and write? Ah, the sting of sarcasm—Have we a scholar here? Then produce us a specimen," said Lymond. "What about some modest quatrains? Frae vulgar prose to flowand Latin. Deafen us, enchant us, educate us, boy.

He said, 'I take your for granted as much as it is prudent for any person to do so. I trust you as far as is sensible. I enjoy your company as far as it is allowable. I will banter with you and expect you to banter with me just so far and no further. I have confided in you, by accident, more than was wise but probably not enough to make any difference. I shall not do it again.

Jerott's voice was stony. 'I am prepared to go wherever I can be of most help. I meant only that I expect to be too occupied to give the attention I ought to Mile Marthe's safety. I think M. Gaultier should come with us.' 'Then who,' said Lymond agreeably, 'do you suggest looks after the spinet?' 'Onophrion?' 'Jerott,' said Lymond, with the thinnest edge beginning to show in his voice.

I have fallen out of the habit of talking to brothers,' Lymond said.

I dislike untidy wars, as I dislike untidy peacemaking.

I am in love-desire, and unless you take me now, I shall fall in pieces...but I do not think I can be moderate. Forgive me, forgive me...' But her breathing was as changed now as his, and all order retreating before the strength of the living force beating about them. She pressed the latch, and set the last door to lie open. 'Khush geldi: welcome: thou art come happily,' she said gently, and let him come, where he belonged, within her gouvernance.

Hell's hell again: the de'il's back.

Civility's nearly as dull as sobriety and I cannot—will not—be labelled dull. I have peper and piones, and a pound of garlik; a ferthing-worth of fenel-seed for fasting dayes, but dullness have I none: nor am I overfond of being discussed.

Alec Guthrie looked into the domineering, incongruous eyes which showed something of impatience and something of regret and something, blatant and wounding, of sharp self-derision. 'Abandon your quest,' said Francis Crawford. 'What you are looking for, dear Alec, is buried. And no leech in London is going to revive it.

I hope never to have to do that to you again. I hope one day you will forgive me. Try to remember, just at this moment, that my trade calls for acting. Try to remember, Richard, as I have told you, that because of your own honesty I can't confide in you.

Is that all it means to you?" Marthe said. "To me it means there is no disease. It means it's curable, provided you root out the cause of it. Is it not worth an effort? No one would bring back a man doomed to blindness, but what if he isn't?

If he is mad, I can agree with him.' 'He isn't mad,' said Jerott.

We don't go near the bridge,' said Lymond peacefully. 'Excuse me,' said Fergie Hoddim. 'How can you wreck a fine bridge without going near it?' 'By sending something else near it instead,' Lymond said. 'An ox to Jupiter, a dog to Hecate, a dove to Venus, a sow to Ceres, a fish to Neptune. What, instead of Fergie Hoddim, shall we sacrifice?

Terror," said Lymond, "is our daily bread in the Wuthenheer. We eat it, we live by it and we disseminate it; and not only between Christmas and Epiphany: there is no close season for fright.

You were right. I should really never have gone back to Jerott. Intolerance drunk is bad enough, but intolerance sober is quite insupportable.

Lymond said suddenly, 'As alternatives, they leave a lot to be desired. Could no one bring us some raki? If we must have a wake let us make it a happy one. Heureux qui, comme Ulysse, a fait un beau voyage. Let's have Jerott's form of decadence for a change.' Jerott said, 'Francis, shut up.

If I were yourself, I would perhaps give him his head. He looks a meek enough child." "So did Heliogabalus at an early age," said Lymond. "And Attila and Torquemada and Nero and the man who invented the boot. The only thing they had in common was a cherubic adolescence. And red hair, of course, makes it worse.