Messy

“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.”
― Dorothy Dunnett, Pawn in Frankincense

“Perfectly prepared to be an eavesdropper but unwilling to look like one, Philippa backed quickly towards the door and collided, hard, with an unseen person striding forward equally fast into the room. There was a hiss, more than echoed by herself as the breath was struck from her body. Then two cool, friendly hands held and steadied her, one on her shoulder and one on her flat waist, and a low voice said, ‘Admirable Philippa. I always enter my battlefields in reverse, too. But my own battlefields, my little friend. Not other people’s.”
― Dorothy Dunnett, Pawn in Frankincense

“Don't get your drawers in a twist,' was one of her favourite phrases, 'or you'll find yourself bum-bare in the market-place . . . .”
― Mary Brown, Playing the Jack

“Jack turned, and it was just as well he was looking at me rather than at the audience for never, I swear, did such utter amazement fill a man's face. He gobbled like a turkey cock, his eyes almost started from his head, his jaw fell open and he stepped back as though he had been pricked.”
― Mary Brown, Playing the Jack