"There comes a point for a nut-lover, Quintus thought, where funeral food is worth taking a risk, even when you are dining with a megalomaniac who wants to kill you."

"I like my women in a few wisps of drapery: then I can hope for a chance to remove the wisps. If they start out with nothing I tend to get depressed because either they have just stripped off for someone else or, in my line of work, they are usually dead."

"He had the kind of personality that makes you think a boy will grow up to be a public torturer."

"He was dead. No point speculating. Cherish the past for what it was, an ideal, a signal that human happiness might be a possibility. Raise your standards. Make a decent life, Lucilla. Life is all there is. If it's only once, it must be good... He had been right. If perfection only happened once, that was better than never. Now nothing for her would ever again entail complete despair. So thank you, Gaius Vinius Clodianus, son of Marcus, thank you for your good deed, a deed that brightened somebody's dark world."

"I despise women who rely on men entirely for their own existence."

"Think of tonight as having a real purpose. Yes, it is dining with the dead in order to be at one with our ancestors, but at the same time, a good scoff in shared company provides solace for the unhappy, it anneals the internal stress of bereavement, it helps the living along the path of their recovery from grief.” “That’s a useful motto for a caterer!"

"Words are real if other people think they understand their meaning."

"To be born with nothing was grim. But to be born with everything, then to lose it, was far more cruel."

"Have any sheep been seen walking out of the Library with seagoing adventurers clinging to their wool?"

"This was no more cynical than most lying lozenge-pushers, but when he thought it mattered, Rhoemetalces had been honest. We cannot have that. Rome is a complex, sophisticated society. Truth is distrusted as much as Greek philosophy."

"Even the impetuous Helena Justina was an advocate of traditional family councils. However, every Roman matron knows that domestic councils were devised by our foremothers purely so the views of the matron of a household may prevail."

"'Do you want a cretin or a meddler?' 'Which is better for us?' 'Whoever gets the larger backhander.' 'We won't pay. We are going for probity.' 'Can't afford true justice, eh?'"

"Petronius once told me that pathological murderers tend to start their killing sprees while they are children. Find a man who takes prostitutes off the streets as a personal vocation, and he'll probably have a set of neat jars with his childhood collection of dissected rats."

"[Y]ou would think happy wedding guests would tuck in with gusto—yet ... [i]t’s mourners at funerals who scoff.” “Because this is food as human comfort, plus respect for the national gods. We are one with our ancestors and one with our fellow mourners."

"'Do you kill people?' 'Not regularly. It's too much trouble making my peace with the gods afterwards.'"

"Not all the fine civic building programmes in the world would ever displace the raw forces that drive most of humankind. This was the true city: greed, corruption and violence."

"Never lend if you need repayment; never give where you want a return."

"He wore the purple; it was his entitlement. With it he had neither wreath nor jewels. For him the best adornment of rank was acute native intelligence."

"Architectural drawings may look beautiful and be admired by critics but to be good, they have to work in daily use."

"Discovering that a fraud exists is only the first step. It has to be proved and the proof has to be absolutely watertight."

"Intimidation and awe are how our rulers keep us respectful."

"Never stop to breathe the pretty flower scents. The graves of the poor still stink."

"When I hear the words 'social order', I start looking around for somebody to pick a fight with."

"To know another person's fortune smacks of wanting to control their fate for the wrong reasons."

"We are Romans. We despise thought."

"This was a solitary walk where the sun and the scents of wild flowers would act on a tortured mind like a soothing drug."

"On the scale of country crime, rape tended to rank with shouting boo at chickens."

"Afterwards, sometimes she dared to remember being in his arms. How, after only clumsy couplings with others, she and this man had straightaway come together as a perfect fit. How they moved together, in effortless synchronicity and with such deep pleasure. How when their exercise left them exhausted, she cried a little, so Vinius wiped her eye with his index finger, murmuring kindly, 'No tears!' before they both fell into profound sleep. How her troubled mind had drowned in peace, her body melting against his..."

"If being hit on the head by a falling flower tub could be worth cash to the victim, what price a child’s life under civil law?"

"Sometimes you run away by yourself purely so someone who cares will come to find you. Half the time nobody does. That's the tragedy of life."

"A wise partner does not come between her man and his best friend."

"No woman who builds a career on hard work and talent will ever compliment a much younger one who uses the shallow gift of her looks."

"They were not beggars; well, not in the usual sense. They were Christians, who wanted not just my nephews' money but their souls."

"Their work was undercover—yet their existence unconcealed. That is how fear works."

"Love and death are gritty subjects. Their appropriate handling by poets does not require myrtle petals and violets."

"Smartness always helps in gaining access to the houses of the wealthy. Anyone with a clean face is acceptable to thugs."

"‘What's the verdict?’ ‘A shining new talent. A breathtaking story, written with mystical intensity. An author who will sell and sell.’"

"The new "humour", if you can call it that, is pure malicious gossip. Instead of making a genuine point, it's now good enough to repeat any ribald story without a thought for whether it's even true."

"I asked why Grumio had had to turn to lesser things.'No call. In my father or grandfather's day all I would have needed in life were my cloak and shoes, my flask and strigil, a cup and knife to take to dinner, and a small wallet for my earnings. Everyone who could find the wherewithal would eagerly ask a wandering jokesmith in.' 'Sounds just like being a vagrant philosopher!' 'A cynic,' he agreed readily. 'Exactly. Most cynics are witty and all clowns are cynical. Meet us on the road, and who could tell the difference?’ 'Me, I hope! I'm a good Roman. I'd take a five-mile detour to avoid a philosopher.'"

"In fact, making up a spiteful lie has become respectable. Today's "jesters" are outright public nuisances."

"You're not bloody Aristophanes, and the people who are paying for tickets are not educated Athenians. We're acting for turnips who only come to talk to their cousins and fart. We have to give them a lot of action and low-level jokes, but you can leave all that to us on stage. We know what's required. Your job is to hone the basic framework and remember the simple motto: short speeches, short lines, short words."

"The world is full of people slandering their birthplaces, as if they really believe that small-town life is different elsewhere."

"Communicating wit is a lonely art. It demands an independent soul."

"In an ideal world I ought to have gone with him to observe their reactions, but in an ideal world heroes never get tired or depressed; what's more, heroes are paid more than me."

"Luck is a wonderful luxury. What could better prove that some are born under a star of good fortune than the career (and the large, comfortable home) of the Great King?"

"Marcus! I thought you must have been developing other interests, but I never expected to find you with your arms locked round a fish..."

"I had been right in the first place. Getting involved with politicians is complete stupidity."

"Justice never paid a poor man's bills."