Quotes by Dorothy Dunnett

About Dorothy Dunnett:

Dorothy Dunnett is best known for her six-part series about Francis Crawford of Lymond, The Lymond Chronicles, which she followed with the eight-part prequel The House of Niccolò. She also wrote a novel about the historical Macbeth called King Hereafter (1982), and a series of mystery novels centred on Johnson Johnson, a portrait painter/spy.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

None of them, not even what he suspected should have been little boys, were small. He’d always thought that the James boys were freakishly large, but the men that were beating the shit out of each other over food had been much, much bigger. Most ev...

Dorothy Dunnett

You might, without my crediting it, fall deeply in love and forever, with some warped hunchback whelped in the gutter. I should equally stop you from taking him.

Dorothy Dunnett

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; whic...

Dorothy Dunnett

For once I didn't look away immediately. I forced myself to meet her contemptuous gaze. I allowed myself be swept away by it, to drown in it - the way I'd done so many times before. The way I would willingly do again. Because at least she was here to...

Dorothy Dunnett

You remind me of a boy I used to know Same Smile, same easy, laid-back style And man, could he kiss Blew my mind the very first time His lips touched mine. You remind me You remind me of a boy I used to like. Same eyes, strong arms, same open mind An...

Dorothy Dunnett

I don't like this war. I don't like the cold-blooded scheming at the beginning and the carnage at the end and the grumbling and the jealousies and the pettishness in the middle. I hate the lack of gallantry and grace; the self-seeking; the destructio...

Dorothy Dunnett

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

Dorothy Dunnett

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.

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

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 smi...

Dorothy Dunnett

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

Dorothy Dunnett

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

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

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

My dear boy, in Ireland the midwife uses one hand to hold the baby's best fighting arm from the font water, and grips its jaws with the other lest the goes to litigation about it. Says O'LiamRoe

Dorothy Dunnett

Author Bio

  • NameDorothy Dunnett
  • DescriptionBritish writer
  • BornAugust 25, 1923
  • DiedNovember 9, 2001
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionWriter; Novelist
  • AwardsOfficer Of The Order Of The British Empire