Sarah Dunant · 368 pages
Rating: (21.6K votes)
“If grace belongs to God, there are those who say that luck belongs to the Devil and that he looks after his own.”
― Sarah Dunant, quote from In the Company of the Courtesan
“Outside, the city is changing. While we have been talking of God's laws and seacrets of the earth, a cold fog has come rolling off the sea, pushing through the allys, sliding over the water, rubbing up agienst the cold stone. As I walk the street falls away behind me, the shop's blue awning lost within seconds. People move like ghosts, their voices disconnected from their bodies; as fast as they loom up they dissapear agien. The fog is so dense that by the time I have crossed toward the Merceria, I can barely see the ground under my feet or tell if the gloom is weather of the beginning of dusk.”
― Sarah Dunant, quote from In the Company of the Courtesan
“I listen to people talking sometimes, that great river that is language, with all its undercurrents of grammar and nuance, and I wonder how we all learn so quickly to speak it, given that we begin when we are barely old enough to stand upright. I have no memory of finding it hard. Indeed, I have no memory of it at all.”
― Sarah Dunant, quote from In the Company of the Courtesan
“It is the ones who keep you in thrall to more than their snatches who command the houses and the gowns to go with them. And for that they have first to love themselves.”
― Sarah Dunant, quote from In the Company of the Courtesan
“in the chaos of war, I would have looked simply small, and therefore neither a promise nor a threat.”
― Sarah Dunant, quote from In the Company of the Courtesan
“I know what she is thinking. That she will never have those feelings. And she wants to have them. Oh, how much she wants to...I have seen it before, the way women yearn more for a child when they have fallen in love. It is part of the disease, like the ague that goes with fever. Maybe the real lover's prick goes deep enough to ignite some loning in the womb. Maybe it is the promise of a future, something left over once the passion is spent.”
― Sarah Dunant, quote from In the Company of the Courtesan
“beauty is your gift from God and it should be used and not squandered. Study this face as if it were a map of the ocean, your own trade route to the Indies. For it will bring you its own fortune. But always believe what the glass tells you. Because while others will try to flatter you, it has no reason to lie.”
― Sarah Dunant, quote from In the Company of the Courtesan
“no one bothered dressing up in priests’ robes, for even in chaos hierarchy rules and their cloth wasn’t rich enough.”
― Sarah Dunant, quote from In the Company of the Courtesan
“Venice the peaceful demands Venice the just.”
― Sarah Dunant, quote from In the Company of the Courtesan
“You know I could crush you."
"I know you won't."
"Why, because I need to protect you?"
"No," She poked him in the breastplate. "Because you gave me a pillow.”
― Larissa Ione, quote from Eternal Rider
“Ten years I toiled for that man without reward. Ten years of my incessant labor has contributed to increase the bulk of his possessions. Ten years I was compelled to address him with downcast eyes and uncovered head—in the attitude and language of a slave. I am indebted to him for nothing, save undeserved abuse and stripes.”
― Solomon Northup, quote from Twelve Years a Slave
“People are suffering all around the world. We ignore what’s happening elsewhere every second of every day, focusing only on our country, our city, our neighborhood, or on the people we see daily. We only really care about the pain and unhappiness of our loved ones, our friends and families, because we couldn’t stay sane if we tried to support and save everyone. Nobody could try to do anything like that, except maybe Scion. I’m applying that concept to a smaller scale. My family and my team, they take priority, and they take priority in that order.”
― quote from Worm
“A mother is always a mother, since a mother is a biological fact, whilst a father is a movable feast.”
― Angela Carter, quote from Wise Children
“Nothing as white as the white girl an Indian boy loves.”
― Sherman Alexie, quote from Reservation Blues
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