178 Quotes by Dorothy Dunnett

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?

There is no one to understand us, except ourselves.

Francis Crawford’s face in this fleeting moment of privacy was filled with ungovernable feeling: of shock and of pain and of a desire beyond bearing: the desire of the hart which longs for the waterbrook, and does not know, until it sees the pool under the trees, for what it has thirsted.

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

I am too far away now from it all,’ Lymond said. ‘And if we are going to be metaphysical, I have no sea card, or compass, or star.

They play at gods,′ said Piedar Dooly, and spat. ‘French and English alike. Gods out of hell would you say, harrowing green land for their tennis courts and dressing lapdogs in treasure that would keep half Ireland in bread for a year. The heroes of Tara would have put them face to schisty face and used them for millstones.

Look. If you are having pains, scream. If you are seeing thousand-pound elephant birds with reinforced iron nests, tell us and we shall believe you. If you want to climb up and jump from the roof, let me tell you that we feel exactly the same. Only don’t lock your door like a maiden aunt with the gravel.

His hair soft as a nestling’s, his eyes graceless with malice, Lymond was watching him in a silver mirror.

I feel I deserve a little amusement at someone else’s expense. That is all. I have worked for it. I have paid for it. And I propose to have it.