178 Quotes by Dorothy Dunnett

The crossroads may not be of your own seeking, but at least the road you choose will be your own.

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.

Since I doubt, at the moment, whether I can stomach any hysterical verbiage, suppose we simply say what we mean.

It was a tragic and annihilating war, in which intellect fought naked with intellect, and the blows fell not upon the mind but upon the soul.

Terror,” said Lymond, “is our daily bread in the Wuthenheer. We eat it, we live by it and we disseminate it; and not only between Christmas and Epiphany: there is no close season for fright.

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

I find it so helpful,” continued Lymond, “when some of my gentlemen have well-defined codes of conduct. It makes them more predictable.

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.

Elephants gave you less bother, any day.