Subject to intelligence, nothing is incalculable.

Habits are the ruin of ambition, of initiative, of imagination.

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.

There was a silence. 'You didn't as,' said Jerott at length. 'But 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.

What does anyone want out of life? What kind of freak do you suppose I am? I miss books and good verse and decent talk. I miss women, to speak to, not to rape; and children, and men creating things...

I could see you drop dead this minute from paralysis of the brain cells and burst into uninhibited applause.

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,...

So: 'Why did you laugh?' demanded Philippa, and shook Jerott's hand off her arm. 'Oh, that?' said Lymond. 'But, my dear child, the picture was irresistible. Daddy, afflicted but purposeful, ransacking...

Jerott's eyes and Philippa's met. 'When I meet my friend,' said Jerott Blyth carefully, 'there is likely to be a detonation which will take the snow off Mont Blanc. I advise you to seek other...

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

Nobody ever," said the Dowager sorrowfully, "credits me with normal thought processes. When a mysterious man creates a royal scandal on the banks of the Lake of Menteith with the keenest ears in...

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

The darts which make me suffer are my own.

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...

Not to every young girl is it given to enter the harem of the Sultan of Turkey and return to her homeland a virgin.

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

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

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

She got in, as she had persuaded Jerott Blyth to bring her half across France, by force of logic, a kind of flat-chested innocence and the doggedness of a flower-pecker attacking a strangling fig.

A Scott, having got his bride pregnant, was apt to file her as completed business for eight months at a time.

The war between England and Scotland was in its eighth year and there had been no raid for ten days: it had seemed possible to get married in peace.

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

He said, 'You have everything there is of me, save a little I gave to my people. Now you hold that as well.'And last of all, when he had released her and moved to the door, to stand outside where the...

… Jerott?' Two steps away, Jerott stood perfectly still. 'I hear you.' 'You sound like a schoolmaster,' said Lymond's voice at his ear, with a trace of its usual lightness. 'It doesn't matter. Go...

Disdainful of fur and fretful, privately, about the cost of his buttons, Jerott Blyth sat like the born horseman he was, and watched discreetly for trouble.

Philippa's letter, from an afflicted conscience, was not very much longer. … if I don't look for him, no one else will. You know I'm sorry. But I couldn't leave that little thing to wither away by...

He'd heard of this woman. The Dame de Doubtance, they called her: a madwoman and a caster of horoscopes. Gaultier gave her house-room and men and women came to her from all the known world and had...

My dear, my dear,' said Kate, but to herself. 'I would give you my soul in a blackberry pie; and a knife to cut it with.

I've wed his two empty boots.' 'That you havena,' said Janet, Lady of Buccleuch, lowering her voice not at all in the presence of two hundred twittering Scott relations as they gazed after their...

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...