Quotes from Dorothy Dunnett

Tact,' Lymond said, 'is the name you should have upon your tombstone.

Man is not intellect only,' Guthrie said. 'Not until you reject all the claims of your body. Not until you have stamped out, little by little, all that is left of your soul.

I'm going back to Russia. That's where the money is, and the power. And, of course, the ladies.

Once before, Jerott had seen him like that, in Algiers. He had seen him as he was now, with every skill of mind and body tuned to the ultimate pitch in pursuit of one object. Francis Crawford like that was uncontrollable and very close to invincible. But not invincible. And not impervious to the reckoning afterwards.

I hope,' Lymond said, 'you are not expecting your wages. If every candidate for mort-pay turned up eleven months after his demise you would ruin the Kingdom, if the Cardinal hadn't thought of it first. We thought we had lost you.

I don't mind being labelled devilish but I do mind being regarded as unlucky. The only way to answer that is by a string of successes.

this, I believe, is when the holy relics at St Denis are usually taken down and exposed, bu all right-minded people, against fiends, bogles and your friend Mr Crawford.

Dear Kate, how understanding we were about funerals: how we shared in the weeping beforehand and the lightheartedness, the unsuitable laughter which followed. We've had a victory. We've won a battle whose importance perhaps no one yet knows, after a year of effort which has changed every one of us.

Many years later, understanding it all, the Baron de Luetz, who survived, used to tell how that day they left the Sublime Porte to the measure of the Chorea Machabaeorum, the Danse Macabre, the Danza General de los Muertos.

Nicholas formed the opinion that my lord Simon was untouched by time and probably by experience.

He couldn't succeed Richard now, certainly," said Janet. "But if the English took over? Criminals at the horn with the right kind of politics have died in silk sheets before now." "So they say. Perhaps it's lucky then," said Sybilla, "that this criminal has cheated his way out of favour with every party in Europe.

Afraid?" said the yellow-haired man and laughed. "Forgive me, I should have warned you: I have a tendency to be bloody-minded. Bruslez, noyez, pendez, ompallez, descouppez, fricassez, crucifiez, bouillez, carbonnadez ces méchantes femmes.

Si los deseos fueran pasteles —dijo Lymond, lanzando al aire un objeto brillante—, los mendigos darían mordiscos.

I require you, if you mean what you say about helping, to be a young ass in Aleppo, not Zakynthos.

He has the exact Crawford colouring.' 'Egg mimicry,' said Lymond.

It began eighteen months ago, Lady Culter. He has tried to end his life twice. Once Archie brought him back. Now I have done the same. We have interfered in what doesn't concern us. He belongs to himself and is at his own disposal. Or else what are we?

He did not want to live. As the condition of life does, so the condition of death should depend on one's choice. The wise man lives as long as he ought, not as long as he can.

Nicholas had never before felt amused by anything to do with Simon. He divided twelve quickly by three and concluded that he had not been punched seriously on the head.

Richard Crawford, his brother's wrist in his hand, laid it down gently and turned to him. "We are," he said, "at least no less than the animals. We are members of a race, and of a kingdom, and of a family. The world has borrowed his strength often enough: can we not lend him ours when he needs it? What can be done? What is wrong?

What happened at Novgorod was not entirely George Killingworth's fault, although Danny Hislop afterwards blamed his beard, which he claimed had a life of its own like Chang-kuo Lao's miraculous donkey, which could travel thousands of leagues a day, and then at rest could be folded like paper.

Then Richard said, 'That was crude, for you.' 'But as you will find,' said Lymond softly, addressing the sand, 'I am a very crude man.

It is hard, that? He has no fervour, no intuition, and yet he smells something wrong, something too perfect, something that makes one ask, "If this man is all he seems, why have all the prizes of the world not fallen at his feet? [...] Is it because there is something a fraction inhuman about these perfectly controlled responses, this unearthly radiance?

Fools make news, and wise men carry it.

And the English army, wheeling, started south at a gallop over the hill pass into Ettrick, followed by twenty men and eight hundred sheep in steel helmets.