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

Verily, God hath eighteen thousand worlds; and verily, your world is one of them, and this its bright axle-tree.

If I can’t be personal, I don’t want to argue,” said his hostess categorically. “I may be missing your points, but you’re much too busy dodging mine.

Versatility is one of the few human traits which are universally intolerable. You may be good at Greek and good at painting and be popular. You may be good at Greek and good at sport, and be wildly popular. But try all three and you’re a mountebank. Nothing arouses suspicion quicker than genuine, all-round proficiency.

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.

The coast's a jungle of Moors, Turks, Jews, renegades from all over Europe, sitting in palaces built from the sale of Christian slaves. There are twenty thousand men, women and children in the bagnios of Algiers alone. I am not going to make it twenty thousand and one because your mother didn't allow you to keep rabbits, or whatever is at the root of your unshakable fixation." "I had weasels instead," said Philippa shortly. "Good God," said Lymond, looking at her. "That explains a lot.

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.