Quotes of: Roman-polanski Keyword

We're talking about, essentially, the Roman historians, who wrote Cleopatra into the story mostly so that they could talk about the rise of Rome. And that is one of the problems, of course, in recounting her life. She's only ever apparent to us when ...

Stacy Schiff

The ancient Roman code belongs to a class of which almost every civilised nation in the world can show a sample, and which, so far as the Roman and Hellenic worlds were concerned, were largely diffused over them at epochs not widely distant from one ...

Henry James Sumner Maine

A month ago, Gavin had given his employer four weeks' notice. "I'll get a job around here," he'd told her. "Something low-stress, part-time, maybe. We're not paying rent, and Dad's left us plenty. You should quit, too." A year earlier this news would...

The Dead Path

The French expression 'cul-de-sac' describes what the Baudelaire orphans found when they reached the end of the dark hallway, and like all French expressions, it is most easily understood when you translate each French word into English. The word 'de...

The Ersatz Elevator

O, great wise man,' she said, 'I have been wondering so many things. Is life more than sitting at home doing the same thing over and over? Wise man, is life more than watching one's relatives do unpleasant things, or more than grim tasks one must per...

Horseradish

We should write because it is human nature to write. Writing claims our world. It makes it directly and specifically our own. We should write because humans are spiritual beings and writing is a powerful form of prayer and meditation, connecting us b...

The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life

I've sequenced the questions for maximum speed of elimination,’ I explained. ‘I believe I can eliminate most women in less than forty seconds. Then you can choose the topic of discussion for the remaining time.’ ‘But then it won’t matter,�...

The Rosie Project

The night before a biochemistry class, I read the lecture notes from last year. I look at the pictures in the book. I read some of the book. Now, I've got the general concept. Sure...There's a couple of details to fill in and a few things to memorize...

Straight A at Stanford and on to Harvard

Then he asked my age and I asked his. That's the tradition in China. If we know each other's ages we can understand each other's past. We Chinese have been collective for so long, personal histories are not worth mentioning. Therefore as soon as Xiao...

Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth

She’s not happy in her marriage. Not unhappy exactly, but not happy. He doesn’t want kids, so that’s nothing to look forward to. Her life is chock-full of quiet tedium. Suddenly, she falls in love. And sure, there’s the excitement of being wi...

Fifteen Minutes to Live

It is a very good exercise, at least from a historian's point of view, to imagine oneself a devout pagan while reading various Christian writings.

Christianizing the Roman Empire:

He was a stylist, not a thinker. He spent time trying to say things in as complicated a way as possible.

The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians

Author describes one monarch's impressive table but conveys a contemporary's observation, "the weightiest thing at dinner was the conversation".

The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians

The most important thing for morale was to maintain a united front among the officers.

The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians

That the regime was willing to hit itts chief political constituency in the pocket was a clear sign of desperation.

The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians

Foreign policy often involved nothing more than the decision whom to make war upon.

The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians

He sat there all through a history lesson about the Roman Empire, which--having lived in the Roman Empire, for the four hundred years during which it had included the British Isles--he found inaccurate and boring.

The Boggart

If I'm in Rome for only 48 hours, I would consider it a sin against God to not eat cacio e pepe, the most uniquely Roman of pastas, in some crummy little joint where Romans eat. I'd much rather do that than go to the Vatican. That's Rome to me.

Anthony Bourdain

He tries to get close to her because he wants to know what her glow feels like. She’s alone on the dance floor and even though she’s dancing, there’s a kind of sadness lurking about her, like her heart is somewhere else. Roman doesn’t think h...

The Devil's Breath

Shakespeare's bitter play [Troilus and Cressida] is therefore a dramatization of a part of a translation into English of the French translation of a Latin imitation of an old French expansion of a Latin epitome of a Greek romance. (p. 55)

The Classical Tradition: Greek and Roman Influences on Western Literature

With ancient history writers most immediately in view, the author indicates "tendency to look to the virtues and vices of individuals when seeking causes.

The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians