Dunnett Quotes & Sayings

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. — Dorothy Dunnett

Mariotta listened to it all, sitting judicially in a whirl of velvet with all
the Culter jewels and the emerald necklace for moral support. — Dorothy Dunnett

So, as Lymond strode out and stopped, rigid and white by the doorpost, Sybilla set eyes on Francis, the son of her heart; and so Francis Crawford, after four years of unharnessed power, came face to face at last with his mother.

And Kate, falling upon the door and looking up at her self-contained relative by marriage, saw his face torn apart and left, raw as a wound without features; only pain and shock and despair and appalled recognition, all the more terrible for being perfectly voiceless. — Dorothy Dunnett

Taut, merry, nervous, expertly mounted, exquisitely clothed, haughty in their bright youth, the chevaliers of France poured from the disheveled clearing. Sunlit, all that morning, they spanned the glittering woods: diamond on diamond, grey on grey, riches on riches; bough and limb indistinguishable; skirts and meadows sewn in the same silks; skulls in antique fantasy knotted with rhizome and leafy with fern frond. Webs, manes, beards, spun the same smokelike filament; rime flashed; jewels sparked, red and fat, on rosebush and ring. Earth and animals wore the same livery. Jazerained in its berries, the oak tree matched their pearls, and paired their brilliant-sewn housings with low mosses underfoot, freshets winking half-ice in the pile. — Dorothy Dunnett

What an extraordinary fuss there has been,' said the Dame de Doubtance raspingly, 'about that irresponsible Irishwoman and her improper child. — Dorothy Dunnett

Why not,' said Gaultier viciously, 'play chess?'

It silenced Lymond. His head went back as if he had been struck, the indrawn air caught in his throat. He said nothing more. — Dorothy Dunnett

And Lymond's bright, sardonic face, looking into hers, lost all its amusement; all its icy amiability; all its social charm. 'My dear sister in Christ, and mother in expectation, I may be what Buccleuch has called me: a harlot. But a discriminating harlot, my dear.' And, flashing out an arm, he snatched, lightly from below her labouring grasp, a fine glass vase of Sybilla's at her side. 'You don't sign your work twice,' he said softly. 'It's unlucky. — Dorothy Dunnett

We have reached the open sea, with some charts; and the firmament. — Dorothy Dunnett

Gabriel,' said Jerott firmly, 'is now at Birgu, Malta, engaged in a life-and-death struggle for the Grand Mastership of the Order of St John. He is unlikely to spend a large part of his time arranging esoteric disasters for his adversaries. He is far more likely to arrange to kill them stone dead.'

'All right. You go and get killed stone dead on that side of the garden, and I'll stick to this,' said Lymond. — Dorothy Dunnett

Like King Lewis of Hungary, who was immaturely born, came of age too soon and was immaturely married, my age is out of joint with my phenomenal destiny. — Dorothy Dunnett

He is not going to come back now, for me, for you or for anyone. This time he has found the boatman, and the boatman has taken him over. — Dorothy Dunnett

It would have made a fitting tomb, she supposed, for Thady Boy Ballagh. That it was fitting for Francis Crawford she would not believe. — Dorothy Dunnett

I'm going back to Russia. That's where the money is, and the power. And, of course, the ladies. — Dorothy Dunnett

We met once when you were a boy, at Midculter.' He paused. 'You are not like your brother.'

'No,' Crawford said. He gave his hand another shake and then loosed it with apparent reluctance. 'Richard will never be whipped at a cart-arse for bawdry. I don't know whether you notice, but he wears nothing but mockado and fustian. The graveyard at Culter is full of pauperized mercers. — Dorothy Dunnett

(Dorothy) Dunnett is the master of the invisible, particularly in her later books. Where is this tension coming from? Why is this scene so agonizing? Why is this scene so emotional? Tension and emotion pervade the books, sometimes almost unbearably, yet when you look at the writing, at the actual words, there's nothing to show that the scene is emotional at all. I think it is because Dunnett layers her novels, meaning that each event is informed by what has come before (and what came before that, and what came before that) but Dunnett doesn't signpost in the text that this is happening, leaving it to the reader to bring the relevant information to the table — C.S. Pacat

Her eyes popped open in time to see flames shoot up behind the first-floor windows of Angie's Books. Angie! Where was Angie? Where were her children? The bookstore owner lived in the apartment above her shop with sixteen-year-old Beth and twelve-year-old Bradley.
The Moosetookalook Fire Department was located right next door, housed in part of the town's redbrick municipal building. The overhead door had already been raised. As Liss watched, unable to move, unable to look away, the truck pulled out, maneuvering so that it could get closer to the burning building. — Kaitlyn Dunnett

Julius rose to his feet. The towel dropped, showering cut brown hair over Monna Alessandra's elegant tiles. His hair, finely tailored, clung to a thick-boned face with slanting eyes and a blunt profile which would have looked well on a coin. Tobie, who had almost no hair, gazed at him sadly. — Dorothy Dunnett

Well. On which aspect of our ill-advised doings are we about to lecture each other? I have very little to say. As I recall, I exhausted the matter on several other occasions. — Dorothy Dunnett

Leaving him was less like leaving even the most simple of her friends in Flaw Valleys, and more like losing unfinished a manuscript, beautiful, absorbing and difficult, which she had long wanted to read. — Dorothy Dunnett

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. — 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

that Gina might open up a cut-your-own place." (the rest of the above quote!) — Kaitlyn Dunnett

Lymond said, 'Have I been talking?'

'We all have, in nightmares. But yours have not been about the sea. — Dorothy Dunnett

The door shut behind them all, and locked. The women stared at it, mesmerized, and observed across it the wavering shadow of an uncanny cloud. Behind the chamfered windows the sun was obscured by drifting wreaths of grey smoke, and the silence filled with the crackling of flames. The youngest surviving Crawford, in leaving, had deftly set fire to the castle. — Dorothy Dunnett

Gardington was made over to me once, by the Crown. It's one of their standard good-conduct prizes for espionage.'

Philippa said, rather blankly, 'I thought you were spying at that time for Scotland.'

'Well, I wasn't spying for England,' Lymond said. — Dorothy Dunnett

Jerott?' said Lymond. 'What are you not saying?' His eyes, as the orderly cavalcade paced through the muddy streets, had not left that forceful aquiline face since they met. And Jerott, Philippa saw with disbelief, flushed. For a moment longer, the strict blue eyes studied him; and then Lymond laughed. 'She's an eighteen-year-old blonde of doubtful virginity? Or more frightful still, an eighteen-year-old blonde of unstained innocence? I shall control my impulses, Jerott, I promise you. I'm only going to throw her out if she looks like a troublemaker, or else so bloody helpless that we'll lose lives looking after her. Not everyone,' he said, in a wheeling turn which caught Philippa straining cravenly to hear, 'is one of Nature's Marco Polos like the Somerville offspring. — Dorothy Dunnett

I once heard a man speak, who had understanding, and the promise of vision. He was called the Master of Culter. — Dorothy Dunnett

Once before, Jerott had seen him like that, in Algiers. He had seen him as he was now, with every skill of mind and body tuned to the ultimate pitch in pursuit of one object. Francis Crawford like that was uncontrollable and very close to invincible. But not invincible. And not impervious to the reckoning afterwards. — 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.

'To look after the baby,' she answered. And disconcertingly, after a second's blank pause, Francis Crawford flung back his damp head and laughed. — Dorothy Dunnett

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

I do admire efficiency,' said Marthe. 'But how tedious it can be in excess. — Dorothy Dunnett

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. — Dorothy Dunnett

He was a second too late. Ducking, the felt-capped man, muscles hard, dragged himself out of that grasp and, flinging off to one side, got his balance, glanced once at Jerott, and then darted off into the darkness. After the first step, breathing hard, Jerott stayed where he was, swearing. But he could hardly leave Lymond. He looked up. 'Bravo,' said Francis Crawford, sitting crosslegged on top of the wall, his hood shaken free on his shoulders. 'You're a credit to the bloody Order, aren't you? You know you've got a knife in your hand? — Dorothy Dunnett

our childhood is over now, Marshal. Mankind can survive very well without an intimate study of your susceptibilities but not, unfortunately, without your other functions and talents. Do you think I bring any child into the world to live for himself alone? — Dorothy Dunnett

What is your principal characteristic, would you say?'

'Treacherousness,' said Danny, gloriously.

'That,' said Lymond pleasantly, 'is everyone's principal characteristic. — Dorothy Dunnett

Why are you here?"

Silence. Then the boy said slowly, "Because I admire you. — Dorothy Dunnett

A smile, bracketing his still mouth, spread like bane over Lymond's pale face. — Dorothy Dunnett

Lymond said gently, Let us bathe in moral philosophy, as in a living river. Double-dealing is my business. — Dorothy Dunnett

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. — Dorothy Dunnett

One battle in twelve might be won by a brilliant military stratagem. The rest stood or fell by somebody's blunders. Only rarely, there came the feel of a great campaign evolved by a stylist: imaginative, comprehensive, irresistible. — Dorothy Dunnett

As everyone keeps insisting, parentage doesn't matter. Love him for what he is. — Dorothy Dunnett

We've had a deal of bad poetry, haven't we? Suggesting the climax to this thrilling and literary spectacle. The Olla Podrida, my sweet-hearts, will now be set on the fire. — Dorothy Dunnett

For how long can one maintain total vigilance?

For how long can love last, in isolation, without sinking crushed beneath its own pressure? — Dorothy Dunnett

I don't like to see things done badly on either. At the moment, I am tired of journeys. It is time I arrived somewhere. — Dorothy Dunnett

Go away and bleed to death,' said his onetime saviour sharply. 'On behalf of the female sex I feel I may cheer every lesion. — Dorothy Dunnett

I had no expectations,' Philippa said. The tears stood still on her face. 'This is one lesson I know by heart already. — Dorothy Dunnett

For this, you are right, I need to be either entirely sober or very drunk indeed. — Dorothy Dunnett

It is not advisable to crow. It might be oneself next time. — Dorothy Dunnett

To save our friends' nerves, I suggest we meet on a plane of brutal courtesy. It need not interfere with our mutual distrust.
-Francis Crawford of Lymond — Dorothy Dunnett

Considering Lymond, flat now on the bed in wordless communion with the ceiling, Richard spoke. "My dear, you are only a boy. You have all your life still before you."

On the tortoise-shell bed, his brother did not move. But there was no irony for once in his voice when he answered. "Oh, yes, I know. The popular question is, For what? — Dorothy Dunnett

Lymond surveyed the grinning audience with an air of gentle discovery. Is there no work to be done? Or perhaps it's a holiday? — Dorothy Dunnett

There was a silence. Then: 'What you are saying,' said Philippa slowly, 'is that the child Khaireddin would be better unfound?' The Dame de Doubtance said nothing. 'Or are you saying,' pursued Philippa, inimical from the reedy brown crown of her head to her mud-caked cloth stockings, 'that you and I and Lymond and Lymond's mother and Lymond's brother and Graham Malett would be better off if he weren't discovered?'

'Now that,' said the Dame de Doubtance with satisfaction, 'is precisely what I was saying.'

'How can I find him?' said Philippa. — Dorothy Dunnett

He will not, I think, find it logical to live with what he has done today. I have told him that you are his responsibility. While he believes that, he will continue to protect you. I tell you this, so that you will understand what is happening. He will measure his life by your helplessness. — Dorothy Dunnett

Except for the shapes of the windows, backlit by the streetlights that dotted the perimeter of the Moosetookalook town square, Liss could see very little in the darkness of the room she shared with her husband. The two front windows were raised as far as they would go, since Liss had been taught at an early age that fresh air was one of nature's best sleep aids. She had never had any reason to doubt that small bit of folk wisdom. — Kaitlyn Dunnett

I," said Lymond, in the voice unmistakably his which honeyed his most lethal thoughts, "I am a narwhal looking for my virgin. I have sucked up the sea like Charybdis and failing other entertainment will spew it three times daily, for a fee. — Dorothy Dunnett

Every ruin is packed like a biscuit box. — Dorothy Dunnett

Scott, deaf and enchanted in the gallery, and the whole row of pretty heads at his side saw the concerted rush on Lymond: his assailants downed him without malice and eighteen stones of Molly planted themselves on his chest. "A throw!" said Molly, and Lymond, half buried, gave a choked whoop of laughter and raised a defeated hand in signal to Tammas. — Dorothy Dunnett

I dislike untidy wars, as I dislike untidy peacemaking. — Dorothy Dunnett

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

When Philippa had first demanded his help in eluding Kate and travelling to St Mary's, he had indignantly refused. He was there now because he had discovered, to his astonishment, that she was desperate, and perfectly capable of going without him. Why she had got it into her young head she must see this man Crawford, Cheese-wame didn't know. But after pointing out bitterly that (a) he would lose his job; (b) the rogues in the Debatable would kill them, (c) that she would catch her death of cold and (d) that Kate would never speak to either of them again, he went, his belt filled with knives and her belongings as well as his own in the two saddlebags behind his powerful thighs, while Philippa rode sedately beside him on her smaller horse, green with excitement, with her father's pistol tied to her waist like a ship's log and banging against her thin knees. — Dorothy Dunnett

I prize freedom of the mind above freedom of the body. — Dorothy Dunnett

Courtenay matter. There must be letters. Many of them appear, as you know, to concern the problems of navigation in which he was interested, but it is not difficult to read behind the lines. He died in Padua, and from what I can learn, all his papers were sealed in a casket and locked up by the Bailiff for safety. Rumour has it that Peter Vannes the English Ambassador has been told to — Dorothy Dunnett

His defences are good. But it is his friends that will bring him low, not his enemies, Lady Culter. Keep you out of his way. That's the best advice I can give you. — Dorothy Dunnett

He can make you want to knock him down, if he feels like it, by simply saying "good morning". He possibly said simply "good morning" to Lord Culter. The difference was that, being his brother, Culter hit him. — Dorothy Dunnett

You have only to lift your hand,' Thorkel Fostri said. And after a moment, 'What else were you born for?'
'Why not happiness, like other men? Thorfinn said.
'You have that,' said his foster-father. 'But if you try to trap it, it will change. Why do you resist? It is your right.'
'I resist because it is no use resisting,' Thorfinn said. 'Do you not think that is unfair? I shall be King because I was King; and I shall die because I did die; and did I remember them, I could even tell what are the three ways it might befall me. — Dorothy Dunnett

And deep within him, missing its accustomed tread, his heart paused, and gave one single stroke, as if on an anvil. — Dorothy Dunnett

Only eight months had gone since Henry VIII of England had been suspended in death, there to lie like Mohammed's coffin, hardly in the Church nor out of it, attended by his martyrs and the acidulous fivefold ghosts of his wives. King Francis of France, stranded by his neighbour's death in the midst of a policy so advanced, so brilliant and so intricate that it should at last batter England to the ground, and be damned to the best legs in Europe - Francis, bereft of these sweet pleasures, dwindled and died likewise. — Dorothy Dunnett

Modern war is fought by a number of strong, sweaty horsemen with constipation, who have their eyes on power, on wealth and on glory, and who obey the rules just when it pleases them. — Dorothy Dunnett

At the edge of the still, dark pool that was the sea, at the brimming edge of freedom where no boat was to be seen, she spoke the first words of the few they were to exchange. 'I cannot swim. You know it?"

In the dark she saw the flash of his smile. 'Trust me.' And he drew her with a strong hand until the green phosphorescence beaded her ankles, and deeper, and deeper, until the thick milk-warm water, almost unfelt, was up to her waist. She heard him swear feelingly to himself as the salt water searched out, discovered his burns. Then with a rustle she saw his pale head sink back into the quiet sea and at the same moment she was gripped and drawn after him, her face to the stars, drawn through the tides with the sea lapping like her lost hair at her cheeks, the drive of his body beneath her pulling them both from the shore. They were launched on the long journey towards the slim shape, black against glossy black, which was the brigantine, with Thompson on board. — Dorothy Dunnett

She gave up combing her hair, which the salt air had reduced to a kind of scrim of brown hessian, and, lying down, proceeded to keep her fingernails short in the way Kate admired least. Then she overslept. — Dorothy Dunnett

Darwin Award. That's not a real award, it's a joke. They give them to people who die doing something so stupid that it counts as a service to humanity. — Gregg Dunnett

A versatile commodity, death; except for those suffering it. — Dorothy Dunnett

I made one mistake. Who doesn't? But I despised men who accepted their fate. I shaped mine twenty times and had it broken twenty times in my hands. Of course it left me deformed and unserviceable, defective and dangerous to associate with. ... But what in God's name has happened to charity? ... Self-interest guides me like the next man but not invariably; not all the time. I use compassion more than you do; I have loyalties and I keep by them; I serve honesty in a crooked way, but as best I can; and I don't plague my debtors or even make them aware of their debt. ... Why is it so impossible to trust me? — Dorothy Dunnett

There is a saying of my adoptive ancestors. Though he performs a miracle, or two miracles, if he refuses the third miracle, it is not as profit to him. I shall dine at the Court of France tonight, and in the course of that evening, acquire the royal consent for O'LiamRoe and myself to stay as long as we please. For, to be perfectly frank," said Lymond, gently reflective, "to be perfectly frank, I can't wait to sink my teeth into the most magnificent, the most scholarly and the most dissolute Court in Europe, which so lightly slid out The O'LiamRoe, Chief of the Name, on his kneecaps and whiskers. — Dorothy Dunnett

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

Whatever fascination Lymond held for her mother, it had no power at five in the morning. — Dorothy Dunnett

Without thinking at all deeply about anything, he was chiefly aware of the need to be back in a company of men, fighting something. — Dorothy Dunnett

Self-knowledge is not sold on the Rialto. And if it were, few people would buy. — Dorothy Dunnett

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. — Dorothy Dunnett

Lion-hearted; her tremors braced with virtue, Philippa trotted on. — Dorothy Dunnett

To pass over grief, they say, the Italian sleeps; the Frenchman sings; the German drinks; the Spaniard laments, and the Englishman goes to plays. What then does the Scot?' To Jerott's mind sprang, unbidden, a picture of the sword Archie Abernethy was trying to clean at this moment below.

'This one,' he said, 'kills. — Dorothy Dunnett

That night at Dumbarton was a classic of its kind. She had hopes still, I think, of enslaving me despite myself with her charms. And I probably thought the same. We both found we were mistaken. It had its moments; but she has the mind and morals of a jungle cat. She didn't enjoy meeting ... another of the same. — Dorothy Dunnett

Men would fight well for their pay, but they would die for an aspiration. — Dorothy Dunnett

I always thought there were no secrets in a small town, but I'd never guessed that one. — Kaitlyn Dunnett

I have learned,' said Lymond, 'that kindness without love is no kindness. — Dorothy Dunnett

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

Your state has been seen, and will be reported on. Only it is necessary that you do not yawn. Or, of course, speak. Discretion in all things in all things is needed." She was reminding them, and she hoped they realised it, that they were not circumcised. The circumlocution expected of a high-born Syrian princess was sometimes a trial to Sara Khatun. — Dorothy Dunnett

Will he?" said Lymond. "Will you, Marigold?"

Brilliant, youthful face confronted restless one.

A little, malicious smile crossed the Master's face.

"Oh, no, he won't," said Lymond confidently. "He's going to be a naughty, naughty rogue like you and me. — Dorothy Dunnett

It is not enough,' Robert Reid said, 'to offer justice. The laws of men, the laws of God himself are not enough unless you know the heart, the tongue, the brain, the gut of your people. — Dorothy Dunnett

I do not ask,' said Dee. 'You note I do not ask - but I would swear, by all I have learned, that you are Scorpio.'

'With the sting in the tail?' Lymond said. 'You are probably right. — Dorothy Dunnett

For him, it was now of no importance, as his place in the world was of no consequence. He was home, after long and harsh buffeting. And it was she, who knew his quality as Grey had done, who had to live with the knowledge that there was no channel by which it could continue; that for the purposes of the present world the flourish, so brief, was now over with. — Dorothy Dunnett

Raveand Rhamnusia, Goddes of Dispyte,' said Lymond acidly. 'I am trying to get you home, vide the shiten shepherd and the clene shepe, with your woolly chops spotless. The only drawback to date is that the bloody sheep is going to have to carry the shepherd, so far as I can see. — Dorothy Dunnett

Think for yourselves for a change. You've been pedlars: go and be merchants. You've been mercenaries: go and find something of your own to defend. You've finished teething and there's the world: crack it open if you can. — Dorothy Dunnett

Moving forward quietly to Jerott's side, Adam Blacklock had heard. 'Don't you understand? The authorities are afraid of them both,' he said gently. 'Why do you supose this cordon is here, which only an unarmed girl was allowed to pass through? Lymond, loyal to Scotland, might be a threat to French power greater than even Gabriel, one of these days - Philippa!' And a wordless shout, like a cry at a cockfight, rose among the stone pillars and sank muffled into the old, dusty banners above the choir roof. For Philippa Somerville, who believed in action when words were not enough, had leaned over and snatched the knife from Lymond's left hand. — Dorothy Dunnett

I prefer a society which accepts that I have no choice, and does not pretend that I have. I prefer a God who does what he wills, and rules as he desires, and enjoins on me not to prevent anything against its destiny. — Dorothy Dunnett

Liss squinted, searching frantically for Angie and Beth and Bradley. She couldn't spot them anywhere. Her chest rose and fell in time with her agitated breathing. What if they were still inside? What if they were trapped?
Struggling for calm, Liss told herself that they must have escaped. Angie was scrupulous about changing her smoke-alarm batteries. She and her kids would have had plenty of time to get out. Heck, Angie was probably the one who'd alerted the fire department.
But where was she? Where were Beth and Bradley? — Kaitlyn Dunnett

Intentions, yours or anyone else's, don't matter; they never matter and never excuse. — Dorothy Dunnett

I am in love-desire, and unless you take me now, I shall fall in pieces...but I do not think I can be moderate. Forgive me, forgive me...'

But her breathing was as changed now as his, and all order retreating before the strength of the living force beating about them. She pressed the latch, and set the last door to lie open.
'Khush geldi: welcome: thou art come happily,' she said gently, and let him come, where he belonged, within her gouvernance. — Dorothy Dunnett

Intolerance drunk is bad enough, but intolerance sober is quite insupportable. — Dorothy Dunnett

It was a piece of advice only, and aimed at myself as much, I suppose, as at you. - For those of easy tongues, she said. Remember, some live all their lives without discovering this truth; that the noblest and most terrible power we possess is the power we have, each of us, over the chance-met, the stranger, the passer-by outside your life and your kin. Speak, she said, as you would write: as if your words were letters of lead, graven there for all time, for which you must take the consequences. And take the consequences. — Dorothy Dunnett