Dorothy Dunnett Quotes

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

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

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.

Look up . . . and see them. The teaching stars, beyond worship and commonplace tongues.

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.

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.

Lack of genius never held anyone back. Only time wasted on resentment and daydreaming can do that.

Music, the knife without a hilt.

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

The coast's a jungle of Moors, Turks, Jews, renegades from all over Europe, sitting in palaces built from the sale of Christian slaves. There are twenty thousand men, women and children in the bagnios of Algiers alone. I am not going to make it twenty thousand and one because your mother didn't allow you to keep rabbits, or whatever is at the root of your unshakable fixation." "I had weasels instead," said Philippa shortly. "Good God," said Lymond, looking at her. "That explains a lot.

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

Where are the links of the chain ... joining us to the past?

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.

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

It seems to me,’ said Philippa prosaically, ‘that on the whole we run more risks with Mr Crawford’s protection than without 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.

Repressively, Lymond himself answered. “I dislike being discussed as if I were a disease. Nobody ‘got’ me,” he said.

But it's also because of something personal. 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.

So she was on her own, Kate thought, and instilled all the friendly helpfulness she could into her next question. “Excuse me, but are you the bad company young Mr. Scott has got into?

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.

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.

He regards boredom, I observe, as the One and Mighty Enemy of his soul. And will succeed in conquering it, I am sure—if he survives the experience.

Only common mortals like the Somervilles have good old rotten hates, dear,' said her mother. 'Sir Graham manages to love everybody and wouldn't know what you're talking about. Have a bun.' 'He doesn't love the Turks,' said Philippa. 'He kills them.' 'That isn't hate,' said Kate Somerville. 'That's simply hoeing among one's principles to keep them healthy and neat. I'm sure he would tell you he bears them no personal grudge; and they think they're going to Paradise anyway, so it does everyone good.

Oh, well. Everyone else has suave, cosmopolitan sheep: why not us? The Millers at Hepple have a ewe that’s been to Kelso three times, and they’ve never been farther than Ford in their lives.” Kate peered absently into the farm pond, and clucked again. “Thoughtless creatures. They’ve forgotten the fish.

Did I ever tell you,’ said Lymond pausing on the afterthought, on his way to the flap, ‘that that aunt of mine once hatched an egg?’ He paused, deep in thought, and walked slowly to the door before turning again. His lordship of Aubigny, staring after the vanishing form of his brother, received the full splendour of Lymond’s smile. ‘It was a cuckoo,’ said Francis Crawford prosaically, and followed Lennox out.