Quotes from Lindsey Davis

Falco readers are, I must say, the most strikingly nice group of people.

Petronius would take his free bread buns and run. I happened to know that since Petro had been elected to the watch he had never cast a vote. He believed a man on a public salary should be impartial. I didn't agree but I admired him being so stubborn in his eccentricities. Aufidius Crispus would be an unusual politician if he had allowed for such morality in the voters he was courting.

No woman who builds a career on hard work and talent will ever compliment a much younger one who uses the shallow gift of her looks.

It was very dark. Cassius boldly crossed to a window and threw back a shutter; it dropped off in his hand. He cursed as the heavy wood crashed to the floor, leaving splinters in his fingers and grazing his leg on the way. "Frankly," Helena decided at once, "this seems a bit too elegant for us!

You know nothing about me, Falco, she muttered in a low voice. I whipped back, more intensely than I meant, But oh my soul, I wanted to find out!

We both had a tender regard for this god. Min had not only helped us learn something material; more importantly, his presence had helped Tiberius. Working in disguise at the lettuce booth, though ludicrous, had taken his mind off his troubles after the lightning strike. Min had restored my man to me.

Emperors came and went while bureaucracy continued, as rampant as mould.

Once you permit individuals to maneuver in secret, unasked, and for their own purposes, there is chaos.

All bankers assume your money is theirs to play with.

Even men who use fear as their weapon can themselves be threatened. We all have something we don't want to lose.

When they speak, everything else stops. Nobody dares interrupt. Everyone sits looking rapt, hanging on these words of wisdom even while they are wondering what the flowing tirade really means. Clearly it is their own inadequacy if they are not transported into astounding inspiration by the demagogue's words of wisdom, so many words, so long in the delivery.… No one can leave.

Good omens let you down. Bad ones give you something to fight against.

The host with the most horrible manners. If he invites you, send a sick note. If he insists, take to your bed and die.

Aprender una lengua extraña: asimilas nociones de gramática, vocabulario básico y un acento espantoso que apenas sirve para que te entiendan. Te esfuerzas durante años y de repente, sin saber por qué, todo fluye, captas cómo funciona...

Sometimes information you barely noticed consciously comes back to you of its own accord.

Sometimes you run away by yourself purely so someone who cares will come to find you. Half the time nobody does. That's the tragedy of life.

I laughed. 'Claudius Laeta means, Faustus, the Emperor's choice should be steered by his freedmen. Government by secretariat. Democracy through bureaucracy.

Olympus, of course not! If you are to be a politician, your natural medium is lying. Surely your agent has explained that?

Slavegirls' brats, sir, are not heralded by proud fathers in the 'Daily Gazette.' The fact that I exist is marked only by my standing here before you, blood and bone decked out in a new dress. The modern philosophers may grant me a soul, but nobody – lord, nobody – burdens me with a fate to be foreseen!

One day you will be a prim middle-rank bureaucrat who wears a clean toga every day. You'll talk of economics over breakfast and only eat lettuce for lunch. And I'll have to sit at home with my face in an inch-thick flour pack, forever checking laundry bills." I controlled a smile. "Well, that's a relief. I thought you were going to be difficult about my plans.

Latin, the language of politicians, provides a fine medium for lies, malpractice, obfuscation and straight bamboozling. It's perfect for buffoons, inadequates and crooks.

Life would be only what they chose to make it, grappling within the straitjacket of society

Curiosity is a terrible inducement.

They were not beggars; well, not in the usual sense. They were Christians, who wanted not just my nephews' money but their souls.