Quotes from Dorothy Dunnett

My dear boy, in Ireland the midwife uses one hand to hold the baby's best fighting arm from the font water, and grips its jaws with the other lest the goes to litigation about it. Says O'LiamRoe

So small a spirit, to lodge such sorrows as mankind has brought you. Live…live….Wait for me, new, frightened soul. And though the world should reel to a puny death, and the wolves are appointed our godfathers, I will not fail you, ever.

War had given Francis his respite, and success had brought him his final reward: the freedom he wished from his marriage. The licence, if he desired it, to go back to Russia. The knowledge, one supposed, that, severed from Philippa, he could allow the past to lie in peace, and cease troubling him.

Jerott thought, acidly, that a slip of that dagger, if it happened, would save Francis Crawford a large sum of money.

She wouldn't send anyone, nor would she take anyone with her. She organizes witches' Sabbaths every full moon,' explained Philippa tartly.

Archie?' said Lymond. 'It is half past four o'clock in the morning, and I am exceedingly drunk. Do you suppose these two statements have anything to do with each other?' 'No,' said Archie tolerantly. 'And neither will you, come the morning.

He received another kiss which led him to wonder, hopefully, if the English bastard at the Hôtel d'Hercule was dying.

He looked well. And as if somewhere, lately, he had tasted happiness.

Calamitosus est animus futuri anxius, or why worry about tomorrow, when your funeral is today. Goodbye.

I asked,' Sybilla said, 'because I have seen him like this before … once; when he elected to take everyone else's business in hand and return it to them correctly aligned, like an artist with a child's drawing.

From limbo, you cannot say forgive me, unless you can also say you regret what you have done. I have no regrets. I have nothing to tell you, except what you know already: that love is a powerful master. For his favours do you pay tribute and toll while flesh endures, and no doubt after.

It was to be a long, newsy letter, effective in spelling and conveying inexplicitly in its latter pages an explicit injunction from his mother to come home at once. The fact that Francis Crawford's mother had made no such request and before she did so would bleed in her coffin like pie-meat was a matter of minor importance.

Evil the drink and ill the resting place. I am not, unfortunately, asleep.

Archie shrugged. 'All I know is what's going to happen.' Philippa said, 'What should I do?' And Archie said, 'Break him.

If we surrender we'll get our throats cut anyway. Let's go out in a blaze of glory.

To Lymond, she said, 'I didn't ask. I don't care what you are going to say. I don't care. I don't care. These things have got to be said. Everyone is frightened to speak to you.' 'But I allow no one—no one at all, to speak to me like this,' Lymond said.

Piero Strozzi and Francis Crawford looked at one another. 'A hint,' said Lymond, 'sufficeth for the wise, but a thousand speeches profit not the heedless. Did you hear what she said?' 'Unfortunately,' said Piero Strozzi, 'I heard what she said.

He could have covered my mouth,' said Jerott indignantly, sitting up with great success and giving Salablanca his hand. 'He didn't want blood-poisoning,' said Lymond callously. 'Also he didn't know you're so damned slow with a knife.…

I don't need to strike you. Words will do just as well.

I give you a friendly warning. You think M. de Sevigny is drunk. He is not.' 'You might not think so,' said Lymond amiably. 'But in ten minutes or so, I am going to slip under the table and lie there.

Absence is absence, whatever causes it. It is no more or less an affront to you. I did say, as I remember, that I would try to do what you wished me to do. And that you must forgive me if I failed.

Piero Strozzi closed his mouth, which had fallen ajar. 'Of course,' he said. 'You have a son, don't …' He roared. 'I beg your pardon. My foot slipped,' said Philippa. 'Have a date flan, and don't talk so much while the hautboys are playing. If you lose your voice, none of us will know what to do.

What we choose to do then is nothing?' said Lymond, and his face was not pleasant. 'I have taken far too long as it is to face the consequences of my actions. You must not unlearn me my lesson. I have several other tests, still more acid, to pass.

The sight of the food made Jerott want to vomit. He said cheerfully, 'Well, well. Thank God you're a dab hand at chess.' 'If you're going to be bright,' said Lymond, with a soft and frightening venom, 'I'll break your sweet little neck.