Dorothy Dunnett

“I’ve heard the Prior here talk about Gabriel,’ said Richard serenely. ‘He seemed at times to be confusing him with the Pope.”

— Dorothy Dunnett

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

— Dorothy Dunnett

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

— Dorothy Dunnett

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

— Dorothy Dunnett

“Don’t you think you should retire again? The first retiral seems to have got mislaid.”

— Dorothy Dunnett

“Not to every young girl is it given to enter the harem of the Sultan of Turkey and return to her homeland…

— Dorothy Dunnett

“Lion-hearted; her tremors braced with virtue, Philippa trotted on.”

— Dorothy Dunnett

“Violence in nature is one thing, but among civilized mankind, what excuse is there?”

— Dorothy Dunnett

“this, I believe, is when the holy relics at St Denis are usually taken down and exposed, bu all right-minded people, against…

— Dorothy Dunnett

After I convinced them that I was a harmless novelist, I actually got them to give me a tour of the harem…

— Dorothy Dunnett

“She gave up combing her hair, which the salt air had reduced to a kind of scrim of brown hessian, and, lying…

— Dorothy Dunnett

“Then Lymond’s voice, the chill gone, said, ‘Don’t be an ass, Jerott? You know I can’t do without you.’ It was an…

— Dorothy Dunnett

“So small a spirit, to lodge such sorrows as mankind has brought you. Live … live.… Wait for me, new, frightened soul.…

— Dorothy Dunnett

“Tuned to the din, O’LiamRoe and his deerhound heard the footfalls at once. Shaggy brindle next to hispid gold, the two Irish…

— Dorothy Dunnett

“On the day that his grannie was killed by the English, Sir William Scott the Younger of Buccleuch was at Melrose Abbey,…

— Dorothy Dunnett

“Rimed and sparkling with sugar, the wrestler lay like some child's flaccid sweetmeat in death, and the dogs licked his eyelids.”

— Dorothy Dunnett

“Julius rose to his feet. The towel dropped, showering cut brown hair over Monna Alessandra's elegant tiles. His hair, finely tailored, clung…

— Dorothy Dunnett

For an hour, blended with all she could offer, something noble had been created which had nothing to do with the physical…

— Dorothy Dunnett

“What a hell of a welcome. I’m sorry. But there’s so much still to do outside before the weather closes, and we…

— Dorothy Dunnett

Did I ever tell you,’ said Lymond pausing on the afterthought, on his way to the flap, ‘that that aunt of mine…

— Dorothy Dunnett

“He said, 'I take your for granted as much as it is prudent for any person to do so. I trust you…

— Dorothy Dunnett

“O England,’ said Kiaya Khátún. Her voice, mellow and strong, held an accent or a mingling of accents Philippa was unable to…

— Dorothy Dunnett

“A moment later the music began, and Kate shrank beneath the onslaught of its message: the fury of hope and joy that…

— Dorothy Dunnett

“And, echoing Jerott, ‘So why in hell have you come?’ Philippa’s gaze, bright and owlish and obstinate, held his to the end.…

— Dorothy Dunnett

“The progress of Sybilla though a market was the progress of worker bee through a bower of intently propagating blossoms. Everything stuck.…

— Dorothy Dunnett

“The wedding ended, hurriedly, on a surge of masculine bonhomie and relief. Five minutes later, followed by the red-eyed glares of their…

— Dorothy Dunnett

“This time, after a moment, he called her bluff. “Perhaps Philippa and I should be thrown together a little more. She might…

— Dorothy Dunnett

“At the edge of the still, dark pool that was the sea, at the brimming edge of freedom where no boat was…

— Dorothy Dunnett

“My dear man,’ said Lymond, ‘he was keeping the numbers down. If we hadn’t taken precautions the whole of the noble Order…

— Dorothy Dunnett

“The unicorns, led by costumed grooms, were behaving well about their horns, and the painted rhapsodies all round the cart were more…

— Dorothy Dunnett

“Swirling furiously among the stairs and corridors of her exquisite home like a small and angry white bat Sybilla, Dowager Lady Culter,…

— Dorothy Dunnett

“It was a French Christmas; a debonair Christmas full of frolic and folly; a spry, Gallic unctuous Christmas. Henry of France, at…

— Dorothy Dunnett

“I could see you drop dead this minute from paralysis of the brain cells and burst into uninhibited applause.”

— Dorothy Dunnett

“This is habitual. Mother flutters her wings, and every institution within sight tumbles flat.”

— Dorothy Dunnett

“Philippa, enviously, wished she could do the same, and then decided she would rather be interesting and sensitive.”

— Dorothy Dunnett

“Whatever fascination Lymond held for her mother, it had no power at five in the morning.”

— Dorothy Dunnett

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

— Dorothy Dunnett

“A Scott, having got his bride pregnant, was apt to file her as completed business for eight months at a time.”

— Dorothy Dunnett

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

— Dorothy Dunnett

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

— Dorothy Dunnett