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

Depose him,’ said Will Scott, astonished. ‘The Grand Master’s holy office terminates with his life.’ ‘And can nobody think of an answer to that?’ said Will Scott.

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; which had. Though she combed the earth and searched through the smoke of the galaxies there was no being she wanted but this, who was not and should not be for Philippa Somerville.

Repressively, Lymond himself answered. “I dislike being discussed as if I were a disease. Nobody ‘got’ me,” he said.

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

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.

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