“Why can’t I remember that not once have I ever seen a coin, whether grimy copper or bright gold, that had but one side.”

“You’d be surprised what people will accept once you insist two or three times running that they have seen what you tell them they have seen.”

“Since my arrival in Rome, I have had many opportunities to wonder if compassion’s opposite is cruelty, or to reflect whether or not indifference would serve as a better black to its white.”

“I think about that centurion from time to time and wonder, had he retired to a farm in Campagna, happy with his harvest of grapes and grandchildren, or had he fallen amongst his comrades on some distant, ruined field, defending the honor and the ever-expanding borders of the Republic? What we foreigners have failed to comprehend over the centuries is that the proud centurion would have found either fate equally satisfying. This is why Rome grows, and the rest of the world shrinks.”

“Oh, I take your meaning now, Marcus,” he said, as if comprehension had just dawned. “You would have me harken back to a time when the outcome of a contest was not known until after the voting. How nostalgic.”

“I don’t care how smart you are. You’ll never understand how little you really know until you’ve had a woman.”

“Yes, I have a romantic nature; it is a character flaw which should be viewed with pity, not derision.”