Quotes from Dorothy Dunnett

And as he followed after the Irishwoman, Margaret Erskine, most levelheaded of women, picked up a Palissy vase, looked at it earnestly and smashed it clean on the floor.

Though whether the mass murder of strangers for one's principles ranks higher in virtue than attacking one's neighbours for the hell of it is a point I'm glad I don't have to settle.

Jerott's hand increased its grip on her arm. 'He is an island with all its bridges wantonly severed. What hostage to evil,' said Jerott, poetic in his thumping displeasure, 'will this night's business conceive?' 'I don't know. But they're both nice and clean, if that's anything,' said Philippa. And led the way philosophically down.

Self-knowledge is not sold on the Rialto. And if it were, few people would buy.

O England,' said Kiaya Khátún. Her voice, mellow and strong, held an accent or a mingling of accents Philippa was unable to name. 'O England, the Hell of Horses, the Purgatory of Servants and the Paradise of Women.' She turned her splendid eyes on the soothsayer. 'She will be like Avicenna, and run through all the arts by eighteen.

I do admire efficiency,' said Marthe. 'But how tedious it can be in excess.

Kate won't be troubled. I don't know any gentlemen, anyway.' 'Thank you,' said Lymond.

I wish to make my fortune with you.' 'Well, you can forget about that, for a start,' said Francis Crawford. 'And if your place in Paradise has been written, then for God's sake hang on to it. Because we're going in the opposite direction.

He can make you want to knock him down, if he feels like it, by simply saying "good morning". He possibly said simply "good morning" to Lord Culter. The difference was that, being his brother, Culter hit him.

Lymond said gently, Let us bathe in moral philosophy, as in a living river. Double-dealing is my business.

Whatever fascination Lymond held for her mother, it had no power at five in the morning.

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.

I hope the string and clapper arrangement he calls a mind has been permanently put out of action.

Verily, God hath eighteen thousand worlds; and verily, your world is one of them, and this its bright axle-tree.

You have not yet discovered what happens to Russians at sea.' 'The same thing, I suppose, that happens to Englishmen,' Chancellor said. 'Scots, I take it, are immune.' 'To sarcasm, yes,' Lymond said.

And, echoing Jerott, 'So why in hell have you come?' Philippa's gaze, bright and owlish and obstinate, held his to the end. 'To look after the baby,' she answered. And disconcertingly, after a second's blank pause, Francis Crawford flung back his damp head and laughed.

Intolerance drunk is bad enough, but intolerance sober is quite insupportable.

There have been so many misunderstandings in the past. What you did, often, was done for good reason. I know I am simple. I know you are devious. But, oh God, if there is any good reason for what you are doing now; any excuse; any unknown factor or subtle circumstance you are afraid I can't grasp, for the mercy of God, this time, tell me.

Gabriel,' said Jerott firmly, 'is now at Birgu, Malta, engaged in a life-and-death struggle for the Grand Mastership of the Order of St John. He is unlikely to spend a large part of his time arranging esoteric disasters for his adversaries. He is far more likely to arrange to kill them stone dead.' 'All right. You go and get killed stone dead on that side of the garden, and I'll stick to this,' said Lymond.

Versatility is one of the few human traits which are universally intolerable. You may be good at Greek and good at painting and be popular. You may be good at Greek and good at sport, and be wildly popular. But try all three and you're a mountebank. Nothing arouses suspicion quicker than genuine, all-round proficiency.

Francis Crawford's face in this fleeting moment of privacy was filled with ungovernable feeling: of shock and of pain and of a desire beyond bearing: the desire of the hart which longs for the waterbrook, and does not know, until it sees the pool under the trees, for what it has thirsted.

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.

Tobie. Unless I'm giving off steam, behave normally. I remember what to do. One foot in front of the other, but not both at the same time unless I'm a robin.

And that was when she realized that laughter, which they had lost, had come back to them, and they were whole again.