Quotes from Dorothy Dunnett

Age can mellow, they say.' 'They say wrong,' said Diccon Chancellor. 'I have known Mistress Philippa these two months, and I have aged while she has grown daily less mellow. Why else am I fleeing the country?

Unwanted, unasked, unwelcome as ever, here I am.' 'Again,' said Lymond.

Tuned to the din, O'LiamRoe and his deerhound heard the footfalls at once. Shaggy brindle next to hispid gold, the two Irish heads turned as Thady Boy Ballagh strolled over the grass.

Intentions, yours or anyone else's, don't matter; they never matter and never excuse: get that into your head.

Arrested for the second, whether in admiration for Lord d'Aubigny's inventiveness or in a kind of silent snort of hysteria at the prodigies expected of him—a condition, O'LiamRoe recognized, to which Lymond was all too prone—Francis Crawford was off guard for the one moment that mattered.

I have a feeling that someone is going to be malicious, and we may as well set them a standard. Shall we go in, lewd and rude, and provoke them?

Among the loose animals, the Keeper's sick camel, a lady of brittle temper, had bobbed her tassels and sunk her yellow teeth three times into unguarded flesh; the dwarf ass brayed itself hoarse and the lion cubs, dear to Abernaci's heart, had shambled off, humping their fat, sandy rumps, to feast among the spilled milk in the wrecked kitchens.

Don't you know, even yet, why I came back to Orkney? Rognvald said. Than Thorfinn looked up. Rognvald's gaze, waiting for his, took and sustained it. Thorfinn did not look away, but his face held no expression. Rognvald said I am the dog at your heel. Everything I have ever done has been an attempt to be like Thorfinn.

If they place the sun in my right hand and the moon in my left and ask me to give up my mission, I will not give it up until the truth prevails or I myself perish in the attempt.

Faith, thought O'LiamRoe. And not a decent creature among them thought to say that the only rule in it is for a man to have a fine, steady seat for an elephant.

Tais-toi. Your glove. Madame Erskine, procure me a large pin,' said the Queen Dowager of Scotland. 'I have yet to meet a man who can lay hands on a pin when there is need for it.

I wrote you.' 'I didn't get it,' said Archie. 'I wrote Applegarth as well,' said Adam angrily. 'He didn't get it either. He's away for a day or two. Jesus,' said Archie, 'are ye not keen to come in? You must be fair wore out with all that writing.

Come, my love,' said Míkál, 'and say goodnight to the dark.' And held him close, full of a sweet young compassion, as the little boy died.

To the Frenchmen risking their lives to drive the English from Scotland, such a feud seemed no doubt an ill-timed indulgence. To Buccleuch, any comment from a foreigner was a piece of damnable impertinence, no less.

I am here, Brethren in Christ, to lead you, every man, woman and little child of the Faith, to freedom. God in His mercy be praised.' 'Then God in His mercy has arranged that we should lead them from the rear,' said Jerott Blyth thinly from the window. 'The entire garrison of Tripoli has just marched away.

His tranquil smile deepened. 'We shall meet in Malta, Jerott. Pray for us all. God has been good tonight.' 'Thompson has been rather splendid too,' said Lymond cordially. and waved a cheerful farewell.

He didn't always tell his father when it happened, because the old man's face turned mottled blue over his doublet, and unless Will got in first, he would send a runner round all the estates, and the threshing would stop while grousing, reluctant men straggled back for their pikes and swords and mail shirts, taking a long time about it, waiting for Buccleuch the Younger to come up, furious on his sweating horse, and tell them curtly to get back to the fields.

Meanwhile, until the snow comes, we had better keep Master Chancellor and his party entertained.' 'Tartar women?' said Fergie helpfully. 'Danny Hislop …' 'Healthy physical exercise,' said Lymond tartly.

Good evening, ladies. The gentlemen now entering behind you are all fully armed. I am Francis Crawford of Lymond and I want your lives or your jewels -- the latter for preference; both if necessary.

It was then that she found that he had laid flat, himself, every defence against her: that she could, if she wished, enter and be received within this, the long-guarded citadel. And so she discovered, fragment by fragment, what he had never told anyone: the inner truth of all those events which, strung together, made up his unruly life.

You choose to play God, and the Deity points out that the post is already adequately filled.

What a hell of a welcome. I'm sorry. But there's so much still to do outside before the weather closes, and we have to tackle all the dreary minutiæ on weapons and theory where all your knightly warriors start losing their tempers and you have to go through a deadly routine of light relief with competitions and war jokes and community singing, and long, long stories of rape and battle and Generals I have Known.

If you were a dear, good little wife, Janet,' had said Lymond, 'you'd fall into a mortal decline that day, or at least hide his boots.' 'Francis Crawford, are ye daft! What ever kept a Scott from a fight? Women? Boots? If yon one were deid, he'd spend his time in Heaven sclimming up and down the Pearly Gates peppering Kerrs.

He will not, I think, find it logical to live with what he has done today. I have told him that you are his responsibility. While he believes that, he will continue to protect you. I tell you this, so that you will understand what is happening. He will measure his life by your helplessness.