“We’re your friends. Your shit became our shit when you drank my tequila and stripped down to your bra. Boss, Shocking Heaven”

“I take it you do not agree with your countrymen’s religious practices.’‘Oh no,’ said Hippothous. ‘I am not Cilician by birth. Mine has been a long and tragic path. I was born in Perinthus, the noble city close by Byzantium. My father was on the Boule. When I was young, I fell desperately in love. Hyperanthes was nearly my age. Stripped for wrestling in the gymnasium, he was like a god. And his eyes – no sidelong glances or fearsome looks, no trace of villainy or dissembling.’As they ate, Hippothous told them a tale of love, lust, subterfuge, murder, flight, shipwreck, loss and exile – a tale worthy of a Greek romance. ‘Probably from a fucking Greek romance,’ muttered Calgacus.”

“It's no good trying to get rid of your own aloneness. You've got to stick to it all your life. Only at times, at times, the gap will be filled in. At times! But you have to wait for the times. Accept your own aloneness and stick to it, all your life. And then accept the times when the gap is filled in, when they come. But they've got to come. You can't force them.”

“So as long as you can forget your body you are happy and the moment you begin to be aware of your body, you are wretched. So if civilization is any good, it has to help us forget our bodies, and then time passes happily without our knowing it. Help us get rid of our bodies altogether.”

“You don't shit where you eat, and you don't try to fuck your bandmate's fiancée. Especially when your bandmate is your boss.”

“Maximus was cleaning his blade on the dead man’s wolfskin. ‘You promised him his life,’ the Greek said. ‘No, I said death was his last worry.’ Maximus swung up on to Pale Horse. ‘Is that not so for all of us?”

“Me? Oh, intellectually I believe in having a good heart, a chirpy penis, a lively intelligence, and the courage to say ‘shit!’ in front of a lady.”