Quotes from Robert Harris

ancient runic systems and the Irish codes of the Book of Ballymote with their exotic names ('Serpent through the heather', 'Vexation of a poet's heart'), through the codes of Pope Sylvester II and Hildegard von Bingen, through the invention of Alberti's cipher disk – the first poly-alphabetic cipher – and Cardinal Richelieu's grilles, all the way down to the machine-generated mysteries of the German Enigma

We do not need a Church that will move with the world but a Church that will move the world.

And shall I tell you something else, papa, now that we're talking at last? It was fine. I was fine. Because what was I doing, really, that ten million other girls don't do every night, only they don't have the sense to get paid for it? That was decadent. This was business – kapitalism – and it was fine, and it was like you said, I only had one friend: myself.

Aunque un hombre ascendiera a los cielos y contemplase las maravillas del universo y la belleza de las estrellas, el hermoso paisaje no le produciría regocijo alguno si hubiera de guardárselo para sí. Y si, por el contrario, tuviera a su lado a alguien a quien describirle semejante espectáculo, se colmaría de dicha. La naturaleza aborrece la soledad.

a rising than a setting sun."' This potent combination of

Cicero often asked me to perform small services for Milo during that campaign. For example, I went back through our files and prepared lists of our old supporters for him to canvass. I also set up meetings between him and Cicero's clients in the various tribal headquarters. I even took him bags of money that Cicero had raised from wealthy donors.

normalcy is overrated: most normal people are assholes".

Hitler has always had the capacity to reflect whatever phobia afflicts the person who stares at him

Familiarity makes even the most fascinating figure dull: one would probably be bored with Jupiter Himself if one passed him on the street every day

But the point is, it won't pass. You can't isolate it from the rest. It's there in the mix. And if the anti-Semitism is evil, it's all evil Because if they're capable of that, they're capable of anything.

When the V2s had first started landing in September, the authorities had put out a story that the huge blasts were caused by exploding gas mains. Nobody believed it. ('Have you heard about the Germans' new secret weapon – the flying gas main?')

It seemed to me at the time - and still does now, only even more so - an act of madness for a man to pursue power when he could be sitting in the sunshine and reading a book

Sometimes,' he said, summing up the discussion with an aphorism I have never forgotten, 'if you find yourself stuck in politics, the thing to do is start a fight – start a fight, even if you do not know how you are going to win it, because it is only when a fight is on, and everything is in motion, that you can hope to see your way through.

I fear there is in all men who achieve their life's ambition only a narrow line between dignity and vanity, confidence and delusion, glory and self-destruction

Caesar is a different category of man altogether. Pompey merely wants to rule the world. Caesar longs to smash it to pieces and remake it in his own image.

Sí, a él también. Pero de quien me preocuparía

THE COMPANY OF THE FUTURE WILL HAVE NO PAPER THE COMPANY OF THE FUTURE WILL CARRY NO INVENTORY THE COMPANY OF THE FUTURE WILL BE ENTIRELY DIGITAL THE COMPANY OF THE FUTURE HAS ARRIVED

there is in all men who achieve their life's ambition only a narrow line between dignity and vanity, confidence and delusion, glory and self-destruction.

He was shaking violently. He had to clench his teeth to stop them chattering. And yet, oddly, he felt no panic. Panic was quite different to fear, he was discovering. Panic was moral and nervous collapse, a waste of precious energy, whereas fear was all sinew and instinct: an animal that stood up on its hind legs and filled you completely, that took control of your brain and your muscles.

So Church and state should be separate?' 'It would be best for both.' 'Then surely we would arrive at a place where the Church would have morals without power, and the state would have power without morality. That is exactly what led the ancients to disaster.

Excellent. I approve of statesmen who write philosophy. It means they have given up all hope of power.

The Germans felt themselves superior to the Italians. The Italians thought the Germans vulgar.

Do you honestly think we would have left something so important to the Italians?

That young man seeks opportunities to test his principles as readily as a drunk picks fights in a bar.