Lindsey Davis Quotes

You're not bloody Aristophanes, and the people who are paying for tickets are not educated Athenians. We're acting for turnips who only come to talk to their cousins and fart. We have to give them a lot of action and low-level jokes, but you can leave all that to us on stage. We know what's required. Your job is to hone the basic framework and remember the simple motto: short speeches, short lines, short words.

If being hit on the head by a falling flower tub could be worth cash to the victim, what price a child’s life under civil law?

Some men are born lucky. Others are born Marcus Didius Falco.

That's the trouble with foreign travel. You spend half your time trying to find edible food, and the rest fighting off men who profess extravagant love to your female companions. I'm amazed how many women believe outright lies from foreigners.

It struck me there might be a reason why Helena Justina whipped along at such a cracking pace: she did not want to be stuck in the wilderness with my corpse. I thanked Jove for her ruthless good sense. I did not want my corpse to be stuck with her in any case.

You could tell those two had been married by the way that she ignored him.

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

Intimidation and awe are how our rulers keep us respectful.

He listened with the mild demeanour of a man who had waited eight years for his town council to draw up a specification for emergency repairs.

Communicating wit is a lonely art. It demands an independent soul.

Smartness always helps in gaining access to the houses of the wealthy. Anyone with a clean face is acceptable to thugs.

She called me a rat.”
“Oh yes, I gathered you two were very close!

To be born with nothing was grim. But to be born with everything, then to lose it, was far more cruel.

Luck is a wonderful luxury. What could better prove that some are born under a star of good fortune than the career (and the large, comfortable home) of the Great King?

He had the kind of personality that makes you think a boy will grow up to be a public torturer.