“It is very seldom that a person loves anyone they cannot in some way envy.”

“Glamour cannot exist without personal social envy being a common and widespread emotion.”

“To worry about differences in earned incomes simply because some persons earn more than other persons is to wallow in envy. And envy is, and ought to remain, a deadly sin rather than be fashioned into a livewire for energizing public policy.”

“And it came to Marcus suddenly that slaves very seldom whistled. They might sing, if they felt like it or if the rhythm helped their work, but whistling was in some way different; it took a free man to make the sort of noise Esca was making.”

“Redemption is something you have to fight for in a very personal, down-dirty way. Some of our characters lose that, some stray from that, and some regain it.”

“We never love anyone. Not really. We only love our idea of another person. It is some conception of our own that we love. We love ourselves, in fact.”