Antonio Salieri: He was my idol. Mozart, I can't think of a time when I didn't know his name. I was still playing childish games and he was playing music for kings and emperors. Even the Pope in Rome! I admit I was jealous when I heard the tales they...
He did not wish to be divine. If there had never been a God, the emperor thought, it might have been easier to work out what goodness was. This business of worship, of the abnegation of self in the face of the Almighty, was a distraction, a false tra...
After a time, he felt a deeper rhythm, the rhythm of the stone and water, not the rhythm of his words and heartbeat. He breathed into this deeper rhythm, let it teach him a new mantra, a wordless mantra that waxed and waned, ebbed and flowed, moon an...
You know," he added reflectively, "we've got a much easier job now than we should have had fifty years ago. If we'd had to modernise a country then it would have meant constitutional monarchy, bicameral legislature, proportional representation, women...
Even now I cannot believe that I am still alive and writing this account of the emperor's death. I put my hands to my eyes, wondering if what I am relating here is not all a dream - or maybe it is not a dream: perhaps it is a delusion and I am mad, t...
He had used only a drop of his perfume for his performance in Grasse. There was enough left to enslave the whole world. If he wanted, he could be feted in Paris, not by tens of thousands, but by hundreds of thousands of people; or could walk out to V...
He wasn't avoiding responsibility... Though there was one thing he clung to. An excuse, perhaps, like the dead emperor. It was the soul of the wretch. Apathy. The belief that nothing was his fault, the belief that he couldn't change anything. If a ma...
Pu Yi, at 15: Who is this George Washington? Reginald Fleming 'R.J.' Johnston: A famous American, your majesty. A revolutionary general, the first American president. Pu Yi, at 15: Ah, like Mr. Lenin in Russia? Reginald Fleming 'R.J.' Johnston: Not q...
Buzz Lightyear: Buzz, are you coming? Buzz Lightyear #2: No, I... I have a lot of catching up to do with my dad. [Buzz throws the ball back to Zurg; it hits him on the head] Emperor Zurg: Good throw, son. That's my boy! Go long, Buzzy! [throws Buzz a...
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Why must I submit samples of my work to some stupid committee just to teach a thirteen-year-old girl? Count Von Strack: Because His Majesty wishes it. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Is the emperor angry with me? Count Von Strack: Q...
Yes, he scorned his family’s decadent ways, but perhaps that wasn’t so much about the money , but rather the wastefulness of it; the lack of energy and drive it represented, as if the Ransomes were—like that postmodern throng of the famous-for-...
For centuries, as pope and emperor tore each other apart in their quarrels over power, the excluded went on living on the fringe, like lepers, of whom true lepers are only the illustration ordained by God to make us understand this wondrous parable, ...
Napoleon, the greatest of the conquerors, is a sufficient proof that great men of action are criminals, and therefore, not geniuses. One can understand him by thinking of the tremendous intensity with which he tried to escape from himself. There is t...
Separating fact and fiction in Inca history is impossible, because virtually all the sources available are Spanish accounts of stories that had already been vetted by the Inca emperors to highlight their own heroic roles. Imagine a history of modern ...
When friends come to Rome in early summer to visit me I like to take them to the Pantheon during thunderstorms and stand them beneath the opening of the feathery, perfectly proportioned dome as rain falls through the open roof against the marble floo...
On Screen Text: [first lines, the text that appears on screen] At the height of its power the Roman Empire was vast, stretching from the deserts of Africa to the borders of Northern England. On Screen Text: Over one quarter of the World's population ...
Katsumoto: The Emperor could not hear my words. His army will come. For nine hundred years, my ancestors have protected our people. Now... I have failed them. Algren: So you will take your own life? In shame? Shame for a life of service? Discipline? ...
The Emperor: Everything that has transpired has done so according to my design. Your friends, up there on the sanctuary moon, are walking into a trap, as is your Rebel fleet. It was *I* who allowed the Alliance to know the location of the shield gene...
[In the beginning of the movie, Rex just lost a Buzz Lightyear vs. Emperor Zurg game, right when nearly winning] Rex: No, no, no, no. Buzz Lightyear: Oh, you almost had him. Rex: I'm never gonna defeat Zurg! Buzz Lightyear: Sure, you will, Rex. In fa...
Tiberius Caesar: [Tiberius Caesar sees Judah Ben-Hur, in Arrius' chariot] This man riding beside you, who is he? Quintus Arrius: The man who saved me, divine Emperor, to return and serve you. Tiberius Caesar: Is that all you know of him? Quintus Arri...
Do you know why the leaves change colour, Makin?" They did look spectacular. The forest had grown around us as we traveled and the canopy burned with colour, from deepest red to flame orange, an autumn fire spreading in defiance of the rain. "I don't...
