“Who built the seven towers of Thebes?The books are filled with the names of kings.Was it kings who hauled the craggy blocks of stone?...In the evening when the Chinese wall was finishedWhere did the masons go?...”

“Who built Thebes of the seven gates?In the books you will find the name of kings.Did the kings haul up the lumps of rock?And Babylon, many times demolished.Who raised it up so many times? In what housesOf gold-glittering Lima did the builders live?Where, the evening that the Wall of China was finishedDid the masons go? Great RomeIs full of triumphal arches. Who erected them? Over whomDid the Caesars triumph? Had Byzantium, much praised in song,Only palaces for its inhabitants? Even in fabled AtlantisThe night the ocean engulfed itThe drowning still bawled for their slaves.”

“When the Chinese Wall was built, where'd the masons go for lunch? When Caesar conquered Gaul, was there not even a cook in the army? When the Armada sank, King Philip wept. Were there no other tears?”

“What is a king, JaRed?""A king," JaRed said, "is supposed to act like a king.""Yes.""The one who serves them!""Yes.""Even when-" His words stopped. No more would come. He stared in silence."The true king is the one who sacrifices himself for his people." In two strides the man towered above JaRed. "The one who loves them.”

“If God's masons built real walls, I doubt we'd be able to destroy them. But instead of walls all I see is backdrops, sets. And sets are made to be destroyed.”

“Quite amazing how determined kings and emperors have been to destroy books. But civilization is built on such desecrations, is it not? Justinian the Great burned all of the Greek scrolls in Constantinople after he codified the Roman law and drove the Ostrogoths from Italy. And Shih Huang Ti, the first Emperor of China, the man who unified the five kingdoms and built the Great Wall, decreed that every book written before he was born should be destroyed.”