I am always translating, he thinks: if not language to language, then person to person.
He looks around at his guests. All are prepared. A Latin grace; English would be his choice, but he will suit his company. Who cross themselves ostentatiously, in papist style. Who look at him, expect...
He glances up again, and recognizes Gregory’s design. It is a system of holy simplicity: big papers on the bottom, small ones on top.
Gradually, you see, our people are coming into the power they have always thought is their due.
God knows our hearts. There is no need for an idle formula or an intermediary. No need for language either: God is beyond translation.
Gambling is not a vice, if you can afford to do it.
Death stays when the visitors have gone, and the nurses turn a blind eye; he leans back on his portable throne, he crosses his legs, he says, ‘Entertain me.
Collot is back from Lyon, did you know? He had finished his work, as he describes it. His path of righteousness is very clear and straight and broad. It’s so easy to be a good Jacobin. Collot hasn’t a...
Christ died to free us from the burden of our sin, but he never, so far as [Sister Philomena] could see, lifted a finger to free us from our stupidity.
But what do they get by the change? One dog sated with meat is replaced by a hungrier dog who bites nearer the bone. Out goes the man grown fat with honor, and in comes a hungry and a lean man.
But I want him north, Howard says. Tell him to go. Tell him Norfolk says he must be on the road and out of here. Or--and tell him this--I will come where he is, and I will tear him with my teeth.My lo...
At least, he thinks, the fellow has the wit to see what this is about: not one year's grudge or two, but a fat extract from the book of grief, kept since the cardinal came down. He says, 'Life pays yo...
At New Year's he had given Anne a present of silver forks with handles of rock crystal. He hopes she will use them to eat with, not to stick in people.
Account books form a narrative as engaging as any tale of sea monsters or cannibals.
ALL JUNE, disasters in the Vendée. At different times the rebels have Angers, Saumur, Chinon; are narrowly defeated in the battle for Nantes, where off the coast the British navy waits to support them...
A man's power is in the half-light, in the half-seen movements of his hand and the unguessed-at expression of his face. It is the absence of facts tat frightens people: the gap you open, into which th...
It's just that you are practiced at persuading, and sometimes it's quite difficult, sir, to distinguish being persuaded by you from being knocked down in the street and stamped on.
«Maximilien, cerca di imparare questa verità», disse padre Herivaux, «gli uomini per la maggior parte sono pigri e ti valuteranno secondo la considerazione che tu hai di te stesso. Assicurati dunque c...
You cannot tell people just part of the tale and then stop, or just tell them the parts you choose.
Tired