Sarah Dunant > Quotes

“When there is fear about the future, it is comforting to take it out on outsiders who can be blamed for the past.”
― Sarah Dunant, Blood & Beauty

“If there were not so many rules to hinder them, I think that men would look at women all the time. Once there is food enough in one’s stomach, what else is there to do in life? You see it every day with women in the market or on the streets: the way men’s eyes fix on them, like iron snapping onto a magnet, scooping their breasts out of their bodices, lifting petticoats and parting shifts, savoring thighs and bellies, burrowing into the beard that hides the moist little pleat beneath. Whatever”
― Sarah Dunant, In the Company of the Courtesan

“How would it be if the end was not Heaven or Hell but just an absence of life? My God, I swear that would be Heaven enough for most of us.”
― Sarah Dunant, In the Company of the Courtesan

“Burke, Peter. Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe. Scholars Press. Bynum, Carolyn Walker. Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women. University of California Press. ________. Jesus as Mother. University of California Press. Camporesi, Piero. The Anatomy of the Senses. Cambridge Polity Press. ________. Bread of Dreams. Cambridge Polity Press. ________. The Incorruptible Flesh. Cambridge University Press. Cardono, Girolamo. “The Book of My Life.” New York Review of Books, 2002. Clark, Stuart. Thinking with Demons. Clarendon Press. Dear, Peter. Revolutionizing the Sciences: European Knowledge and Its Ambitions 1500–1700. Princeton Paperbacks.”
― Sarah Dunant, Sacred Hearts

“It is the disease of youth to mistake speed for strategy.

Gravel mixed with honey: the perfect tone for delivering lies and ultimatums.

Poverty doesn't bring men dignity. On the contrary it encourages envy and crime.

A diplomat's face must be as unreadable as his mind.

Kingdoms fall through luxury. Cities rise through virtue.

No diplomat worth his salt should say everything that he is thinking.

For all the bombast and hyperbole about the wonders of Rome, It was Valencia that had made Rodrigo Borgia what he is: a churchman in love with women, wealth, orange blossom and the taste of sardines.

Dreams are what men use to comfort themselves when they cannot get what they want. It is my conjecture that the great men of history did without sleep.”
― Sarah Dunant, In the Name of the Family

“How do ugly men make their way through life?”
― Sarah Dunant, Blood & Beauty

“Sometimes it is useful to fear something too much, for it makes the real thing quite bearable.”
― Sarah Dunant, In the Name of the Family

“Hills, Helen. Invisible City: Architecture of Devotion in Seventeenth-Century Neapolitan Convents. Oxford University Press. Hollingsworth, Mary. The Cardinal’s Hat. Profile Books. Horne, P. “Reformation and Counter-Reformation at Ferrara” (essay). Italian Studies, 1958. Hufton, Olwen H, editor. Women in Religious Life. European University Institute. Kendrick, Robert. Celestial Sirens: Nuns and Their Music in Early Modern Milan. Clarendon Press. Laven, Mary. Virgins of Venice. Viking Press. Le Goff, Jacques. The Medieval Imagination. University of Chicago Press. Lowe, Kate. Nuns’ Chronicles and Convent Culture in Renaissance and Counter-Reformation Italy. Cambridge University Press. Maclean, Ian. The Renaissance Notion of Woman. Cambridge University Press.”
― Sarah Dunant, Sacred Hearts

“The safest opposition is one that doesn’t exist until the right moment.”
― Sarah Dunant, The Birth of Venus

“How do ugly men make their way through life? He thinks of Michelotto. When he walks down the street men take half a step back from him. But he, Cesare, wields a different power. His face has always been his first weapon. Look at me, it says. I am what you see: easy on the eye, strong to the taste, a man with substance, someone to admire, for how can beauty this natural lie?”
― Sarah Dunant, Blood & Beauty

“Lucrezia”
― Sarah Dunant, In the Name of the Family

“fire consumes more than it warms. In the end there will be only ashes,”
― Sarah Dunant, In the Company of the Courtesan

“Reardon, Colleen. Holy Concord Within Sacred Walls: Nuns and Music in Siena, 1575–1700. Oxford University Press. Rose, Mary Beth, editor. Women in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Syracuse University Press. Ruggiero, Guido. The Boundaries of Eros. Oxford University Press. Schutte, Anne Jacobson. Aspiring Saints. Johns Hopkins University Press. Siraisi, Nancy G. Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine. University of Chicago Press. Sobel, Dava. To Father: The Letters of Sister Maria Celeste to Galileo. Fourth Estate. Sperling, Jutta Gisela. Convents and the Body Politic in Late Renaissance Venice. University of Chicago Press. Trexler, Richard C. Public Life in Renaissance Florence. Academic Press. ________. The Women of Renaissance Florence. Pegasus Press.”
― Sarah Dunant, Sacred Hearts

“I have heard about Venice’s fogs from my old man at the well, dark stories of how the mist descends as thick as doubt, so that men can no longer tell where the land ends and the water begins. The next morning, he says, you can always find one or two fellows with bad consciences floating facedown in a canal barely a hundred yards from their homes.”
― Sarah Dunant, 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, In the Company of the Courtesan

“Walker, D. P. Spiritual and Demon Magic from Ficino to Campanella. Sutton Press. Ward, Benedicta, translator. The Desert Fathers: Sayings of Early Christian Monks. Penguin Classics. Wear, Andrew, R. K. French, and I. M. Lonie, editors. The Medical Renaissance of the Sixteenth Century. Cambridge University Press. Weaver, Elissa B. Convent Theatre in Early Modern Italy: Spiritual Fun and Learning for Women. Cambridge University Press. ________. Scenes from Italian Convent Life: An Anthology of Theatrical Texts and Contexts. Longo Editore. Weinstein, Donald, and Rudolph M. Bell, editors. Saints and Society. University of Chicago Press. Woolfson, Jonathan, editor. Renaissance Historiography. Palgrave Macmillan. Zarri, Gabriella, and Lucetta Scaraffia, editors. Women and Faith. Harvard University Press.”
― Sarah Dunant, Sacred Hearts

“Matter, Anne, and John Coakley, editors. Creative Women in Medieval and Early Modern Italy. University of Pennsylvania Press. McNamara, Jo Ann Kay. Sisters in Arms. Harvard University Press. Monson, Craig A., editor. The Crannied Wall: Women, Religion, and the Arts in Early Modern Europe. University of Michigan Press. ________. Disembodied Voices: Music and Culture in an Early Modern Italian Convent. University of California Press. Mooney, C. M., editor. Gendered Voices. University of Pennsylvania Press. Nutton, Vivian. “The Rise of Medical Humanism in Ferrara” (essay). Renaissance Studies. Park, Katharine, and Lorraine Daston, editors. Wonders and the Order of Nature 1150–1750. Zone Books. Porter, Roy. The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: Medical History of Humanity. HarperCollins.”
― Sarah Dunant, Sacred Hearts

“...there is a kind of comfort to be gained from the passing of time, hour upon hour, day upon day, time falling like thick flakes of snow, the next laid upon the last, again and again, until what has been is gradually covered over, its original shape and colour hidden under a blanket of what is now.”
― Sarah Dunant, Sacred Hearts

“I am like Icarus without wings. But the desire to fly was very strong in me. I think I was always looking for a Daedalus.”
― Sarah Dunant, The Birth of Venus

“BIBLIOGRAPHY Anderson, Frank J. An Illustrated History of the Herbals. Columbia University Press. Baernstein, P. Renee. A Convent Tale. Routledge Press. Baxandall, Michael. Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy. Oxford University Press. Bell, Rudolph M. Holy Anorexia. University of Chicago Press. Bornstein, Daniel, editor. Women and Religion in Medieval and Renaissance Italy. University of Chicago Press. Broedel, Hans Peter. The Malleus Maleficarum and the Construction of Witchcraft. Manchester University Press. Brown, Judith C. Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy. Oxford University Press.”
― Sarah Dunant, Sacred Hearts

“A young woman seeks sanctuary with us. It is not for us to deny her that right. Tell His Holiness that we will protect her with our lives and care for her until she is ready to leave.” Not even Alexander VI can storm a convent and get away with it. The”
― Sarah Dunant, Blood & Beauty

“Brunelleschi,”
― Sarah Dunant, The Birth Of Venus

“it is not what you do or don't do, but how convincingly you can be accused of it.”
― Sarah Dunant, Blood & Beauty

“After the death of Alfonso, she had vowed she would never trust him again, had believed that she would hate him for ever.
Yet almost against her will, he has found his way back into her thoughts, so that there have been moments these last months when she realises that she is missing him: his diamond-sharp energy, his certainty and confidence about everything, and his raw, absolute, undying love.”
― Sarah Dunant, In the Name of the Family

“She has always felt safe inside his arms, this beautiful, powerful elder brother, whom so many fear but who has always been as tender as a lover with her.”
― Sarah Dunant, Blood & Beauty

“As long as I was both my own master and apprentice I would be forever caught in the web of inexperience.”
― Sarah Dunant, The Birth of Venus

“Man is not born to be happy.”
― Sarah Dunant, Blood & Beauty

“Everyone that exalteth himself shall be humbled, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted” And she had tried, truly and honestly, tried so hard that sometimes, despite the nun’s kindness and patience, she thought she might go mad with the effort.”
― Sarah Dunant, Sacred Hearts

“..nevertheless there is a kind of comfort to be gained from the passing of time; hour upon hour, day upon day, time falling like thick flakes of snow, the next laid upon the last, again and again, until what has been is gradually covered over, its original shape and colour hidden under the blanket of what is now.”
― Sarah Dunant

“They say the bottles lined up along her shelves contain aphrodisiacs, poisons and perfumes, but that only she knows which ones are safe and which lethal, for they carry no labels, and that when she starts to prepare death for someone, the man or woman for whom it is intended feels a terrible shiver run through them, as if they have already been touched by the clammy cold of the grave. Or so they say. They say a great many things about Caterina Sforza. But though there is”
― Sarah Dunant, Blood & Beauty