Quotes from Dorothy Dunnett

A man of over thirty might be held to be at the height of his powers, but not necessarily of his wisdom.

I wish to God," said Gideon with mild exasperation, "that you'd talk—just once—in prose like other people.

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

Facts are the soil from which the story grows. Imagination is a last resort.

Today,' said Lymond, 'if you must know, I don't like living at all. But that's just immaturity boggling at the sad face of failure. Tomorrow I'll be bright as a bedbug again.

My mother and father met while playing chess, so I've always had a fondness for the game. If it weren't for chess, I might not be here.

You all know that each title in the Chronicles has a chess theme that's partly because of the overall design of the Chronicles themselves - the game of chess as an analogue of the game of life.

I would give you my soul in a blackberry pie; and a knife to cut it with.

Facts are the soil from which the story grows. Imagination is a last resort.

I despised men who accepted their fate. I shaped mine twenty times and had it broken twenty times in my hands.

Today,' said Lymond, 'if you must know, I don't like living at all. But that's just immaturity boggling at the sad face of failure. Tomorrow I'll be bright as a bedbug again.

Repressively, Lymond himself answered. "I dislike being discussed as if I were a disease. Nobody 'got' me," he said.

Man is a being of varied, manifold and inconstant nature. And woman, by God, is a match for him.

It was one of the occasions when Lymond asleep wrecked the peace of mind of more people than Lymond awake.

I have learned,' said Lymond, 'that kindness without love is no kindness.

To the men exposed to his rule Lymond never appeared ill: he was never tired; he was never worried, or pained, or disappointed, or passionately angry. If he rested, he did so alone; if he slept, he took good care to sleep apart. "—I sometimes doubt if he's human," said Will, speaking his thought aloud. "It's probably all done with wheels.

For an hour, blended with all she could offer, something noble had been created which had nothing to do with the physical world. And from the turn of his throat, the warmth of his hair, the strong, slender sinews of his hands, something further; which had. Though she combed the earth and searched through the smoke of the galaxies there was no being she wanted but this, who was not and should not be for Philippa Somerville.

If I can't be personal, I don't want to argue," said his hostess categorically. "I may be missing your points, but you're much too busy dodging mine.

What's wrong? Has Francis been rude? Then you must try to overlook it. I know you wouldn't think so, but he is thoroughly upset by Tom Erskine's death; and when Francis is troubled he doesn't show it, he just goes and makes life wretched for somebody.

And habits are hell's own substitute for good intentions. Habits are the ruin of ambition, of initiative, of imagination. They're the curse of marriage and the after-bane of death.

Lymond's behaviour, as always, went to the limits of polite usage and then hurtled off into space.

My son took many years to learn the simple truth. You cannot love any one person adequately until you have made friends with the rest of the human race also. Adult love demands qualities which cannot be learned living in a vacuum of resentment.

You choose to play God, and the Deity points out that the post is already adequately filled. During an outburst of besotted philanthropy he had redeemed Lymond, but Lymond quite simply was not prepared to be rescued; and least of all by his brother.

Philippa Somerville, standing back a little, did not withdraw her arm. In her white face, a shadow of motherly irritation appeared. 'Has no one here any sense? Be quiet and sit down. The world will look after itself for a night, without your hand on the rim.