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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| f549bd1 | He has tried to end his life twice. Once Archie brought him back. Now I have done the same. We have interfered in what doesn't concern us. He belongs to himself and is at his own disposal. Or else what are we?' Richard Crawford, his brother's wrist in his hand, laid it down gently and turned to him. 'We are,' he said, 'at least no less than the animals. We are members of a race, and of a kingdom, and of a family. The world has borrowed his .. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 3f46e83 | 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 | ||
| ac8b21d | Are you mourning? Seneca says a wise man lives as long as he ought, not so long as he can. You should be pleased. At last Francis has managed to follow his own misguided path without the rest of us consuming time and energy on setting him right. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 54a633d | At the end of life, parent and kinsman are as a blind man set to look after a burning lamp. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 650a6dd | You Scotsmen: you wish to be like the elephant, hacked to pieces for refusing to bow. You should follow my rule: here am I, supple and amenable as a goatskin glove of Vendome and pleasant to all, Duke and dotard alike. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| f328d3b | He isn't coming,' said Adam. 'Splendid,' said Piero Strozzi heartily. 'I love him, but I have brethren enough who are trying to climb with a foot on my neck. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| d9b7406 | You did not, I trust, persuade your eminent friend to forsake his bower in favour of these noisome marshes? That would indeed be a case of the punishment being born at the same time as the sin. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 12b5fe6 | That way, that sunlit, gentle path was set with mines, and had at the end of it a chasm she could not contemplate. So she hid her impulse, and did not know, because he was better at concealment than she, that he had noticed it. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| c494347 | Meanwhile, battles are fought not by knights, as you well know, but by mercenaries. They are employed, as mastiffs are employed in the boar season, and victory goes to the deepest purse, while the people suffer the cost of them. That is war without pride ruled by chivalry, as the Master of Game rules the hunting field. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 518009c | What I cannot control is the stupid man, launched upon a war which is against his material interests. And there is no scavenger of the air, or beast of the earth, or ooze of the sea which will offend nature like two such, opposed to one another. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| c932008 | I tell you that whatever infatuation you have fallen into, you cannot keep that man at your side. He belongs where he belongs and he will arrive there, no matter how deep you bury him. Best free him at once and save the heart ache. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| baa5257 | I think it would be truer to say,' Philippa said, 'that both of us at the time had our reasons for hurting you. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 6c94502 | 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 | ||
| 8e2c85c | 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 | ||
| 8bbbcec | Is that your whole measure? To shirk what is difficult? To escape to safety, like a strawberry-preacher, when your friends are in danger? My gentleman: if you run from me now, I will brand you and your sister in France, in Scotland, in Midculter and out of it for what you were: rotten stock. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 79e7c5a | Then I tell you,' Sybilla said, 'that you have no leave to die. Nor have you leave to desert the race you belong to. I want your word that from this moment, you live. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| f0301d5 | There was a space, during which, of the five men and women standing or kneeling about Francis Crawford, only one watched him. Then Lymond said clearly, 'On my honour, I promise it. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 2dd7f7e | I could not have done that. I fear nothing and no one. I respect nothing and no one. But I could not have done that.' 'You have done it,' Jerott said. 'It is easy to do it, out of hatred. But you are right. I know of no one else on earth who could have done it out of love. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 7fbe649 | It was a miracle, and it partook of the first property of miracles. It should never have been performed. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 0a0faf2 | Sybilla said, her voice grating again, 'I know, of course, you would rather be dead.' He gave it a little thought. 'Yes,' he said. 'I don't suppose you want to be here in this room either. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| f465912 | But you loved my father,' he said. 'And Eloise's, of course. What was he like?' 'Like you,' Sybilla said. 'And worth all this?' Lymond said. 'Yes,' said Sybilla. 'Don't you, of all people, know what love can do? | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| a185e8b | I sometimes wonder,' said Francis Crawford, 'if I only exist to be sacrificed to.' Her heart beating strongly, she watched him. 'Perhaps,' she said. 'But if you accept sacrifices, you must respond with acts of reparation. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 0b5cc97 | Sybilla said, 'If there are swords, then I suppose you must wear yours. But it is you we need.' 'We?' he said. 'Five hundred thousand people,' said Sybilla. 'You have a high opinion of my swordsmanship,' Lymond said. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| cd5262a | So, although it was more than she ever dared hope for, it was not the same; and never would be. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 0b0e98e | I find your family, my dear Marthe, much more disturbing than mine. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 2424e7c | eside him, on a low table stood a chess set she remembered. The heavy pieces of rock crystal and silver stood, darkly glimmering below the light of the window, and the fire, seeking them, had placed within each a small tongue of living flame. She said, 'There are not many pieces now left on the board. Who is your opponent?' 'Myself. Who else?' Lymond said. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| d082e3b | A long sea voyage with Jerott spewing drunk on every deck is not my idea of an adequate quid pro quo. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 5ad1eed | He had not moved. But, her blue eyes on his face, she did not rise. 'Lord, is there nothing in the cup for me? While you were drinking, I was singing to you.' The detachment had gone from his face, but not the strength. He shook his head; and rising, Marthe turned and walked from the room. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 7eb5875 | A versatile commodity, death; except for those suffering it. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 677565b | 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 | ||
| 3881ea8 | All I gathered from that is that Francis Crawford is a raging harlot. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 564dbac | It partook,' said Kate, 'of the nature of a full-scale cursing against one Crawford of Lymond, but whether for sins of omission or commission is not entirely clear. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 529d290 | We're all runts and bastards of one sort or another. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| dac55ab | Why are you here?" Silence. Then the boy said slowly, "Because I admire you." | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| a20c334 | So,' said Mary, 'you would condemn the human race to hell, for want of enlightenment?' 'Why not?' said Francis Crawford. 'It has nothing to fear, surely, from hell. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 748b7b5 | I am glad then,' said Catherine, 'that there was nothing between us, rather than mediocrity.' And from the homes ... of Unicornes ... 'There was kindness,' he said. 'And that was a great deal. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 0748238 | It was hard to say therefore why he did not go below, and rally his brother, and encourage him to let the past fade, and look forward to what lay before him. Unless, in his heart of hearts he recognized as Lymond did that what lay around him were shut gates; and what lay before him was nothing. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| c28b222 | Right?" said Lymond. "You pathetic, maladroit nincompoop, you're never right." | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| e464fb9 | Then you've had a good day of it, I suppose." "Then you suppose wrong," said Lymond shortly. "I've had a damned carking afternoon. A Moslem would blame my Ifrit, a Buddhist explain the papingo was really my own great-grandmother, and a Christian, no doubt, call it the vengeance of the Lord. As a plain, inoffensive heathen, I call it bloody annoying." | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 30c35d5 | A long time afterwards, she was to remember what an excellent chess-player Francis Crawford was. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 952b7fe | And, surprisingly, it was Lymond's voice which said sharply, 'You cannot debar a human being from love! | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 2b8ae11 | What Mr Blyth has been engaged in was not love, my dear Francis. It was romance, a thing to which Mr Blyth has been very prone; together with melodrama. Whatever made you think that melodrama makes Mr Blyth uncomfortable? He revels in it. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 632547c | Marthe said dryly, 'Philippa wishes only to say thank you, and so also do I. They say in Italy, don't they, that the boat will sink that carries neither monk, nor student, nor whore.... How good that we have Mr Blyth.' 'How good that we have Mlle Marthe,' Lymond replied. His clothes, freshly changed, were impeccable and his brushed yellow hair, free of sand, was lit guinea-gold by the gleam of the lamps. 'Of her fellow men so charming a stu.. | Dorothy Dunnett | ||
| 1f11c1d | this, I believe, is when the holy relics at St Denis are usually taken down and exposed, bu all right-minded people, against fiends, bogles and your friend Mr Crawford. | Dorothy Dunnett |