“Rome was mud and smoky skies; the rank smell of the Tiber and the exotically spiced cooking fires of a hundred different nationalities. Rome was white marble and gilding and heady perfumes; the blare of trumpets and the shrieking of market-women and the eternal, sub-aural hum of more people, speaking more languages than Gaius had ever imagined existed, crammed together on seven hills whose contours had long ago disappeared beneath this encrustation if humanity. Rome was the pulsing heart of the world.”

“But even the longest day wears to sunset.”

“It has never been, and never will be easy work! But the road that is built in hope is more pleasant to the traveler than the road built in despair, even though they both lead to the same destination.”

“It has never been and never will be easy work! But the road that is built in hope is more pleasant to the traveler than the road built in despair even though they both lead to the same destination.”

“It has never been and never will be easy work! But the road that is built in hope is more pleasant to the traveler than the road built in despair even though they both lead to the same destination.”

“Speak not against anyone whose burden you have not weighed yourself.”

“Some knowledge and some song and some beauty must be kept for those days before the world again plunges into darkness.”

“No house is big enough for the rule of two women.”

“To know you are ignorant is the beginning of wisdom.”

“Darling, I wish I could help you. Try to remember this: to live, you need every experience. Some will come in glory and in beauty, and some in pain and what seems like ugliness. But - they are. Life consists of opposites in balance.”

“And the truth is only that we grow and die and wither even as this grass here.”