Цитаты из книги A Murder on the Appian Way

"I came to ask a favour, Great One."
"Good. I always like it when I'm asked for favours, whether I grant them or not. It gives me a chance to live up to my name. What is it you want, Finder?"

Growing older is a torment, and being drunk is a comfort only to a point, after which it becomes a torment, too.

Cicero's orations had roused many reactions in me over the years — outrage at his willingness to twist the truth, admiration approaching awe at his ability to construct a logical argument, simple wonder at his prodigious ego, grudging respect for his loyalty to his friends, dismay at his shameless demagoguery, for Cicero was always ready to exploit his listeners' religious sentiments and sexual prejudices to his own-ends.

He lifted his head and stared at me steadily, waiting for my reaction.
" 'The beauty, the power of words!' " I finally said, mocking him. "Curse the gods who gave us oratory! And curse the clever men like you who make a travesty of words like liberty and justice!"

(..)
I thought I understood. Minerva, who could see everything from the place where she had fallen, must have had quite a laugh at me that night.

Every man acts out of his own nature, and moves on a singular path towards his destiny.

(...)
It's a strange thing, but people like Cicero and Caelius like to be insulted." "Do they?"
"That's been my experience. I needle them, they needle me back. They know they have nothing to fear from me; nothing I might say can really hurt them. They enjoy my needling, the way one sometimes enjoys having a mosquito bite — the itch gives them something to scratch. Not like a bee sting; not like the bloody sores I've seen Cicero inflict on his enemies with a barbed word or two."

The world is like a spinning disc, driving men and women to the edge and then hurling them this way and that into the void beyond its whirling rim. Most are never seen again, but some manage to grab hold of the edge and claw their way back to the centre, not once but again and again.

(...)
Whatever the pretext, every politician ascending the rungs of the magistracies is obligated to outdo his rivals in producing the most memorable races and comedies and gladiatorial combats. The practice is so accepted that no one ever seems to notice that providing expensive public entertainments is just as much a kind of electoral bribery as putting coins directly into the purses of voters. Nowadays, people seem to have lost the will to object even to that.