“Arrested for the second, whether in admiration for Lord d’Aubigny’s inventiveness or in a kind of silent snort of hysteria at the prodigies expected of him—a condition, O’LiamRoe recognized, to which Lymond was all too prone—Francis Crawford was off guard for the one moment that mattered.”

“To save our friends’ nerves, I suggest we meet on a plane of brutal courtesy. It need not interfere with our mutual distrust.” -Francis Crawford of Lymond”

“I must apologize for these damned entrances,’ said Francis Crawford of Lymond. ‘I feel Tom here never knows if he should send for a bishop or start a round of applause.”

“He was a second too late. Ducking, the felt-capped man, muscles hard, dragged himself out of that grasp and, flinging off to one side, got his balance, glanced once at Jerott, and then darted off into the darkness. After the first step, breathing hard, Jerott stayed where he was, swearing. But he could hardly leave Lymond. He looked up. ‘Bravo,’ said Francis Crawford, sitting crosslegged on top of the wall, his hood shaken free on his shoulders. ‘You’re a credit to the bloody Order, aren’t you? You know you’ve got a knife in your hand?”

“In any given culture and at any given moment, there is always only one 'episteme' that defines the conditions of possibility of all knowledge, whether expressed in theory or silently invested in a practice.”

“From the moment absurdity is recognized, it becomes a passion, the most harrowing of all. But whether or not one can live with one's passions, whether or not one can accept their law, which is to burn the heart they simultaneously exalt - that is the whole question.”