Top 150 Dorothy Dunnett Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “Acrostics in French or acrostics in Hebrew were still Greek to him.”

— Dorothy Dunnett

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

— Dorothy Dunnett

53. “How nice,” said Lymond, “to have simple emotions. No trouble with principles; no independence of thought; no resistance to suggestion; no nonsense about adult behaviour when it comes to one’s own amour propre.”

— Dorothy Dunnett

54. “There breaks a crutch Scotland never knew it possessed.”

— Dorothy Dunnett

55. “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.”

— Dorothy Dunnett

56. “I know. Aha, Oho, and every other bloody ejaculation. Let’s take it as read. You’re delirious at the idea of manhandling me and can’t wait to start. I in turn may say I find your arrival offensive and your presence blasphemous, thus concluding the exchange of civilities and letting us get out of here. If there’s anything novel or extra you want to add, you can think of it on the way home.”

— Dorothy Dunnett

57. “In order to rule, one must face reality.”

— Dorothy Dunnett

58. “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.”

— Dorothy Dunnett

59. “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

60. “This,’ said Lymond, ’is by no means a game I will play, or consider playing. Move.”

— Dorothy Dunnett

61. “You need bed and a hot drink and a little less fluent self-pity.”

— Dorothy Dunnett

62. “You invited them without Lymond knowing?’ said Danny Hislop. He wriggled into the circle. ‘Can I be there when he hears about it?”

— Dorothy Dunnett

63. “And if there’s no trouble, you’ll make it,’ offered Will Scott, his eyes bright, his cheeks red. ‘No. At the moment,’ affirmed Lymond grimly, ‘I am having truck with nothing less than total calamity.”

— Dorothy Dunnett

64. “I’m sorry,’ said Jerott, his eyes elsewhere. What was the attraction here, in God’s name? Not the little woman in the stained gown, surely? Or the plain fourteen-year-old who had been so courageous the night Trotty died?”

— Dorothy Dunnett

65. “You choose to play God, and the Deity points out that the post is already adequately filled.”

— Dorothy Dunnett

66. “He has to perfection, M. le Comte, the art of living his private life with as much public attention as possible.”

— Dorothy Dunnett

67. “It was of no importance. Birth did not matter; heredity was merely a hurdle; one was what one made of oneself; that and no other.”

— Dorothy Dunnett

68. “They spoke in Latin, so that all might understand; but the quotations they flung at each other were Greek and Hebrew, Turkish, Persian.”

— Dorothy Dunnett

69. “Nine-tenths of every attack is bluff. The art is to know when to call it.”

— Dorothy Dunnett

70. “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

71. “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.”

— Dorothy Dunnett

72. “No. I won’t. I won’t bend my knee, or kiss your charming shoes either. I may possibly fall flat on my face, but that will be quite inadvertent.”

— Dorothy Dunnett

73. “Before God, you are my soul; and till death and beyond, will remain so.”

— Dorothy Dunnett

74. “You’ve chosen a life of vice, and have been consistent and reliable and thorough and successful in carrying it out.”

— Dorothy Dunnett

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

— Dorothy Dunnett

76. “The more modest your expectations, the less often you will court disappointment.”

— Dorothy Dunnett

77. “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?”

— Dorothy Dunnett

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

— Dorothy Dunnett

79. “I would have forgone even the body for the sake of the mind. And I would have claimed neither body nor mind, had I discovered a soul.”

— Dorothy Dunnett

80. “The trouble about Mr Crawford,’ said Kate, ’is that he puts up with his enemies and plays merry hell with his friends.”

— Dorothy Dunnett

81. “Immoderation, Mariotta, is a thief of money and intestinal joy, but who’d check it? Not I. Here I am, weeping soft tears of myrrh, to prove it.”

— Dorothy Dunnett

82. “Why?’ said Philippa. ‘For suffering what you have suffered for three months?’ And felt the veils rend about her, for she had broken the unwritten law: it must not be uttered. It must not be uttered, or they could not bear the pain, mirrored over and over.”

— Dorothy Dunnett

83. “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

84. “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

85. “Whoever is unsupported by the Mystery of Love shall not achieve the grace of salvation. Whoever shall cast love aside shall lose everything.”

— Dorothy Dunnett

86. “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.”

— Dorothy Dunnett

87. “Intolerance drunk is bad enough, but intolerance sober is quite insupportable.”

— Dorothy Dunnett

88. “Civility’s nearly as dull as sobriety and I cannot – will not – be labelled dull. I have peper and piones, and a pound of garlik; a ferthing-worth of fenel-seed for fasting dayes, but dullness have I none: nor am I overfond of being discussed.”

— Dorothy Dunnett

89. “You bloody little dictator,’ he said. ‘You’re exactly like Kate.”

— Dorothy Dunnett

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

— Dorothy Dunnett

91. “The guiding hand at one’s pony; the voice at one’s porridge bowl; the splendid athlete one watched from one’s books in the cold tower window, while outside in the sunshine he rode at the ring, threw his spears, matched his sword with the master-at-arms. The brother who had cared for him, a grown man in illness, and defended him against calumny, and who at length, heartbroken at his defection, had turned his back on him a year ago in Scotland.”

— Dorothy Dunnett

92. “To the Frenchmen risking their lives to drive the English from Scotland, such a feud seemed no doubt an ill-timed indulgence. To Buccleuch, any comment from a foreigner was a piece of damnable impertinence, no less.”

— Dorothy Dunnett

93. “I prize freedom of the mind above freedom of the body.”

— Dorothy Dunnett

94. “Lymond said gently, “Let us bathe in moral philosophy, as in a living river. Double-dealing is my business.”

— Dorothy Dunnett

95. “I dislike untidy wars, as I dislike untidy peacemaking.”

— Dorothy Dunnett

96. “One knows, when all one’s life one has walked in dangerous places, when the silence is that of ambush and when the silence is that of emptiness.”

— Dorothy Dunnett

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

— Dorothy Dunnett

98. “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

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

— Dorothy Dunnett

100. “Intelligence is the only indispensable commodity in life or in warfare. If you think otherwise, go live in a hut with a poet. The rest of us will do our best to defend you.”

— Dorothy Dunnett