Lindsey Davisová: Citáty anglicky
“Getting involved with politicians is complete stupidity.”
Venus in Copper
Kontext: “I had been right in the first place. Getting involved with politicians is complete stupidity.”
Last Act in Palmyra
Kontext: The new "humour", if you can call it that, is pure malicious gossip. Instead of making a genuine point, it's now good enough to repeat any ribald story without a thought for whether it's even true.
“Cherish the past for what it was, an ideal, a signal that human happiness might be a possibility”
Master and God
Kontext: He was dead. No point speculating. Cherish the past for what it was, an ideal, a signal that human happiness might be a possibility. Raise your standards. Make a decent life, Lucilla. Life is all there is. If it's only once, it must be good... He had been right. If perfection only happened once, that was better than never. Now nothing for her would ever again entail complete despair. So thank you, Gaius Vinius Clodianus, son of Marcus, thank you for your good deed, a deed that brightened somebody's dark world.
Last Act in Palmyra
Kontext: I asked why Grumio had had to turn to lesser things.'No call. In my father or grandfather's day all I would have needed in life were my cloak and shoes, my flask and strigil, a cup and knife to take to dinner, and a small wallet for my earnings. Everyone who could find the wherewithal would eagerly ask a wandering jokesmith in.'
'Sounds just like being a vagrant philosopher!'
'A cynic,' he agreed readily. 'Exactly. Most cynics are witty and all clowns are cynical. Meet us on the road, and who could tell the difference?’
'Me, I hope! I'm a good Roman. I'd take a five-mile detour to avoid a philosopher.'</p
“There are fortunes to be made out of bristle for a man with deft hands.”
The Iron Hand of Mars
Kontext: Stick with it, Xanthus. There are fortunes to be made out of bristle for a man with deft hands.
Nemesis
Kontext: Petronius once told me that pathological murderers tend to start their killing sprees while they are children. Find a man who takes prostitutes off the streets as a personal vocation, and he'll probably have a set of neat jars with his childhood collection of dissected rats.
“Sometimes information you barely noticed consciously comes back to you of its own accord.”
The Third Nero
“Their work was undercover—yet their existence unconcealed. That is how fear works.”
The Third Nero
Kontext: “Their work was undercover—yet their existence unconcealed. That is how fear works.”
“For him the best adornment of rank was acute native intelligence.”
Time to Depart
Kontext: He wore the purple; it was his entitlement. With it he had neither wreath nor jewels. For him the best adornment of rank was acute native intelligence.
Time to Depart
Kontext: Not all the fine civic building programmes in the world would ever displace the raw forces that drive most of humankind. This was the true city: greed, corruption and violence.
“Communicating wit is a lonely art. It demands an independent soul.”
Last Act in Palmyra
“Senator, don't let your judgement be warped by one heady moment.”
The Silver Pigs
“Never stop to breathe the pretty flower scents. The graves of the poor still stink.”
The Accusers