Dorothy Dunnett Quotations

After I convinced them that I was a harmless novelist, I actually got them to give me a tour of the harem - which is usually off limits for tourists.

You all know that each title in the Chronicles has a chess theme; that's partly because of the overall design of the Chronicles themselves - the game of chess as an analogue of the game of life.

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.

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

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.

To the men exposed to his rule Lymond never appeared ill: he was never tired; he was never worried, or pained, or disappointed, or passionately angry. If he rested, he did so alone; if he slept, he took good care to sleep apart. “—I sometimes doubt if he’s human,” said Will, speaking his thought aloud. “It’s probably all done with wheels.

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

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.

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.

Depose him,’ said Will Scott, astonished. ‘The Grand Master’s holy office terminates with his life.’ ‘And can nobody think of an answer to that?’ said Will Scott.

What’s wrong? Has Francis been rude? Then you must try to overlook it. I know you wouldn’t think so, but he is thoroughly upset by Tom Erskine’s death; and when Francis is troubled he doesn’t show it, he just goes and makes life wretched for somebody.

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.

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?

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

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.

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.

Music, the knife without a hilt,

A man of over thirty might be held to be at the height of his powers, but not necessarily of his wisdom.

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

And at thirty-eight a brilliant exponent of arms and a knight of the great fighting and religious Order of St John, the Chevalier de Villegagnon had absolutely no use for common sense himself, but respected it in the laity.

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.

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

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

[Robin Stewart] was your man. True for you, you had withdrawn the crutch from his sight, but still it should have been there in your hand, ready for him. For you are a leader-don't you know it? I don't, surely, need to tell you?-And that is what leadership means. It means fortifying the fainthearted and giving them the two sides of your tongue while you are at it. It means suffering weak love and schooling it till it matures. It means giving up you privicies, your follies and your leasure. It means you can love nothing and no one too much, or you are no longer a leader, you are led.

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

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.

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

It was one of the occasions when Lymond asleep wrecked the peace of mind of more people than Lymond awake.

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.

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.

Fools make news, and wise men carry it.

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

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.

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.

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

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

Early on, I received hundreds of letters every week from readers. Later, however, as groups began to organize, readers began writing to one another.