Quotes from Dorothy Dunnett

You bloody little dictator,' he said. 'You're exactly like Kate.

Except once, long ago, over an estrangement with his wife Mariotta, Lord Culter had never been jealous of the young brother he had seen grow from babyhood. Until the moment Francis had left home at sixteen, a prisoner of war to the English, Richard knew him solely as a blond and delicate boy, interested only, it seemed, in reading and music, whose apparent fragility concealed a will of steel, and a turn of phrase which could wound like a sword-cut.

My love is given to no one,' said Lymond. 'To neither man, woman or child. Duty, friendship, compassion I do owe to many. But love I offer to none.

Henry of England had all the virtues and all the faults, and solved the contradiction by making scapegoats and sin-eaters of half his entourage.

Philippa said, to the scandalization of priest and secretary and chargé d'affaires, 'I think I'd like to get drunk.

Don't be so sensitive,' he said, faintly chiding. 'It makes everyday commerce most trying.

Mariotta listened to it all, sitting judicially in a whirl of velvet with all the Culter jewels and the emerald necklace for moral support.

Julius rose to his feet. The towel dropped, showering cut brown hair over Monna Alessandra's elegant tiles. His hair, finely tailored, clung to a thick-boned face with slanting eyes and a blunt profile which would have looked well on a coin. Tobie, who had almost no hair, gazed at him sadly.

You've got one hero too many already. Stand on your own feet, Brother. It's good for the soul.

A trained fighting man, accustomed to hard words and hard blows and the company of men like himself, for years ruled by the self-discipline required by the world's greatest order of chivalry, Jerott had come to terms now with the fact that one man could make him feel and act like a rhinoceros in a cloud of mosquitoes.

You are a mathematician,' John Dee said. 'I am a musician,' said Lymond.

It won't help you," said Scott. "Nothing ever does. That's why I help myself so frequently.

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

If you will excuse us?' 'Go to Sir Henry's room,' Lady Mary called after her. 'And if you use weapons, be sure to call witnesses.

With Jerott Blyth, innkeepers never shirked the proper discharge of their duties. To the doggedness of his Scottish birth, his long residence in France and his profession of arms had lent a particular fluency. He was black-haired, and prepossessing and rude: a masterful combination.

Are you by any chance …' said Lymond. '… baiting you?' Philippa said. 'Only when you are inclined to be magisterial.' 'Oh, good God,' Lymond said. 'Kate must be out of her mind.' 'And thank heaven you aren't my father?' said Philippa. 'Roughly,' said Lymond, and began to laugh, and then stopped.

That day, engrossed together in the fate of the child, he met her mind to mind and fell in love with her, with every grain of his spirit and cell of his body; with the essential finality of death.

Scott, deaf and enchanted in the gallery, and the whole row of pretty heads at his side saw the concerted rush on Lymond: his assailants downed him without malice and eighteen stones of Molly planted themselves on his chest. "A throw!" said Molly, and Lymond, half buried, gave a choked whoop of laughter and raised a defeated hand in signal to Tammas.

Lymond, released, flung his head back and, viewing his winnings, gave them solemn dispensation to descend for the space of the dance. He asked for and obtained some chalk, and set to marking his and Mat's property where the cross was most obvious and the whim most appreciated.

A smile, bracketing his still mouth, spread like bane over Lymond's pale face.

Very soon afterward, Tom Erskine found her, and in five minutes, during which her heart in its cold cage took wearily to itself a new, lifelong burden of protective and fond understanding, Christian Stewart became his affianced wife.

I echo like a mynah, that's why.

Some day, I must take my own prolific advice and contrive to drop dead.

You've changed the metre,' said Philippa. 'I reserve the right,' said Lymond, 'to change the metre. Don't interrupt.