The Walled Orchard Quotes

“Now one of the great things about a democracy, which anyone considering setting one up in their native city should bear in mind, is that the voters really do believe that anything is possible. If there is a food shortage, for example, it’s no use explaining to them that there is no food to be had; that the Spartan fleet is blockading Byzantium and we can’t get so much as a grain of wheat past them, or that the Public Treasury is so empty that you can see more floor than coins. They won’t believe you. What you must do is blame somebody.”
― Tom Holt, The Walled Orchard

“Which is why I started writing this, I suppose - that and the money Dexitheus offered me, of course, and the prospect of something to do over the winter. Dear God, I really am starting to ramble now, aren’t I? I’d better get on with the story, before I completely lose touch with reality.”
― Tom Holt, The Walled Orchard

“I start off meaning to tell you a story, and then I get sidetracked with something that interests me, and I go wandering off all over the place; yet here we are, nicely on schedule, at the point where I have just met Phaedra and am just starting off on the long process of getting betrothed to her. In fact, we are here rather ahead of time; so, while we are waiting for the main stream of my narrative to catch up with us, I shall tell you about my first meeting with the Spartans.”
― Tom Holt, The Walled Orchard

“There are a great many things in this book which would conceivably need explaining, and I am certainly not going to explain them all. That would be insufferably tedious. If, therefore, I refer to something which you do not understand or have not heard of, I advise you to keep quiet and use your intelligence to try and work out from the context what is going on, as I have had to do all my life. Pretend that this is not a book at all, but some enthralling conversation you are eavesdropping on in the Baths or the Fish Market.”
― Tom Holt, The Walled Orchard

“[Phaedra] wasn't perfect, by any stretch of the imagination, but I would willingly have trade all my prizes in the Festivals, even the prize for the Demes, just to have known her a little better.”
― Tom Holt, The Walled Orchard

“So now I have outlived all the good or interesting characters in this book, and you are left with me. If you do not share my undying fascination with myself, I suggest that you leave out the next bit and carry on down to the top of the last roll.”
― Tom Holt, The Walled Orchard

“For in those days it was rare to see a man and a woman, especially a wife and her husband, laughing together in the street. Now, of course, things are very different, and nobody laughs at you or makes faces behind your back if you happen to mention that you are quite fond of your wife. Personally, I blame the modern craze for philosophy and this so-called New Comedy we hear so much about.”
― Tom Holt, The Walled Orchard

“I remember hearing that one very small allied contingent from a non-Greek city somewhere in the far south of Sicily had been completely wiped out except for a single man, and that for days afterwards he wandered round the camp looking completely lost, since there was no one left alive who could speak his language. I knew how he felt.”
― Tom Holt, The Walled Orchard

“had my hair cut and scented.”
― Tom Holt, The Walled Orchard

“oranges”
― Tom Holt, The Walled Orchard