Lady of the Eternal City Quotes

“But if men are the makers and breakers of empires, then women are the makers and breakers of men.”
― Kate Quinn, Lady of the Eternal City

“He doesn't need to tend her, because she hunts her own prey. He doesn't need to shield her, because she kills her own enemies. He doesn't need to look for her, because she's always at his side.”
― Kate Quinn, Lady of the Eternal City

“Vix watched you like a lion watches a lioness.”

“And how does a lion watch a lioness?” Sabina didn’t even try to pretend nonchalance this time.

“He doesn’t need to tend her, because she hunts her own prey. He doesn’t need to shield her, because she kills her own enemies. He doesn’t need to look for her, because she’s always at his side.”
― Kate Quinn, Lady of the Eternal City

“Even when she was just a flutter inside me, I loved her. Because she is ours.”
― Kate Quinn, Lady of the Eternal City

“Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too. —MARCUS AURELIUS”
― Kate Quinn, Lady of the Eternal City

“Pin all your impatience on growing up, she thought, and then you learn it gets no better when you’re grown.”
― Kate Quinn, Lady of the Eternal City

“Oh, Hell's gates!" Annia cried, borrowing Vix's favorite curse.”
― Kate Quinn, Lady of the Eternal City

“I didn’t say it out loud because I knew he’d mock me—but I was thinking of writing my memoirs, too. The life of Vercingetorix the Red: soldier, and gladiator, and general who had traveled the length and breadth of the Empire, served three emperors, loved one empress and fathered another. Hadrian would preserve my son in his memoirs, god and beloved—but what of the others who had crossed Hadrian’s path and mine over the course of our long and complicated lives? What about Titus, friend and future Caesar? Young Marcus, Imperial heir and future son-in-law? And all those women, the women in blue: sinuous lapis-eyed Sabina, bitter-edged Mirah in her blue scarf, merry sapphire-decked Faustina, and fleet-footed Annia running in a bloodstained blue tunic to save the Empire? If Hadrian will not tell their story, I suppose it will be up to me.”
― Kate Quinn, Lady of the Eternal City

“You’d think the fate of the Eternal City would depend on someone like me, a warrior with bloody hands and a bloody sword. But it will rise or fall on a woman—and maybe it always does.”
― Kate Quinn, Lady of the Eternal City

“Oh, Hell’s gates!” Annia cried, borrowing Vix’s favorite curse.”
― Kate Quinn, Lady of the Eternal City

“No. I am Empress. I learned under Plotina. I learned under her predecessor Domitia. You know what empresses are, Lucius? We are plotters. We are schemers. We are survivors.” She smiled. “And sometimes, we are killers.”
― Kate Quinn, Lady of the Eternal City

“with steady grace and a serious expression. He did everything like that, Annia thought, whether it was his lessons, a game of trigon, or an absurd religious ritual. “I want to do things well,” he’d explained to her. “Even if I don’t win.” Annia hadn’t seen the point of doing something well if you weren’t going to win, but maybe Marcus was right after all.”
― Kate Quinn, Lady of the Eternal City

“We’d met as children inside the marble reaches of the Colosseum, a slave brat and a pearled doll, awkward and already fascinated with each other, and here we were more than thirty years later in a dark grove, a sleek empress and a battered guard.”
― Kate Quinn, Lady of the Eternal City

“On the wall in Britannia, you told me he could be a great man. I didn’t believe you. And I’ll still say it—he’s not a good man, not by any means. Not like Trajan. But when he’s on a tear like this and out to change the world . . .” “You can’t look away,” Sabina finished. “Because, as bad as he can be, you want to stick around and watch, just see what he’ll do next. Don’t you?”
― Kate Quinn, Lady of the Eternal City

“Suetonius, well, he’s got a mind like a gossip trap. The most rubbishy collection of rumors, omens, portents, and stories you’ve ever heard.”
― Kate Quinn, Lady of the Eternal City

“Syria Palestina.” The passion went out of Hadrian’s voice as soon as they left the subject of his dead lover. “There is no more land named Judaea. I have redrawn the borders and renamed the entire province.”
― Kate Quinn, Lady of the Eternal City

“Sh’ma Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Ehad,”
― Kate Quinn, Lady of the Eternal City

“Greek culture.” A culture of soft women and womanish men, as far as I was concerned, and Antinous’s current status didn’t exactly contradict me. “The Jews have their own way of doing things, you know that.”
― Kate Quinn, Lady of the Eternal City

“He’s to rename Jerusalem as Aelia Capitolina, did you hear?”
― Kate Quinn, Lady of the Eternal City

“If any be angry, let him remember that he is unhappy by reason of himself alone,”
― Kate Quinn, Lady of the Eternal City

“Nothing happens to any man that he is not formed by nature to bear. —MARCUS AURELIUS”
― Kate Quinn, Lady of the Eternal City

“It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live. —MARCUS AURELIUS”
― Kate Quinn, Lady of the Eternal City

“The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury. —MARCUS AURELIUS”
― Kate Quinn, Lady of the Eternal City

“of the dead is retained in the memory of”
― Kate Quinn, Lady of the Eternal City

“Hatred doesn't lie. Hatred doesn't tell soothing stories. You'll tell me true.' ~ Hadrian”
― Kate Quinn, Lady of the Eternal City

“Annia of the red braid and the ferocious scowl and the long, long limbs. Annia Galeria Faustina...
"Mine," I whispered, "Mine”
― Kate Quinn, Lady of the Eternal City

“energy”
― Kate Quinn, Lady of the Eternal City