“When the world has once begun to use us ill, it afterwards continues the same treatment with less scruple or ceremony, as men do to a whore.”

“You knew all along that your sanctioned world was only half the world, and you tried to suppress the other half the same way the priests and teachers do. You won't succeed. No one succeeds in this once he has begun to think.”

“It's as if people -- normal people -- are made of silver. Shiny to start with, but tarnished by time, by ill-treatment. Luca... Luca is gold. Nothing in the world could ever make him shine less brightly.”

“Like me, she has scruples. Why is it that only people with money have scruples? Do we have no money BECAUSE we have scruples?”

“Some men want whores on the eve of battle, and some want gods. Jon wondered who felt better afterward.”

“Everything great that has ever happened to humanity has begun as a single thought in someone's mind, and if anyone of us is capable of such a thought, then all of us has the same capacity, capability, because we're all the same.”