Lindsey Davis Quotes

“Never lend if you need repayment; never give where you want a return.”

— Lindsey Davis

“Sometimes you run away by yourself purely so someone who cares will come to find you. Half the time nobody does. That's the tragedy of life.”

— Lindsey Davis

I despise women who rely on men entirely for their own existence.

— Lindsey Davis

I like my women in a few wisps of drapery: then I can hope for a chance to remove the wisps. If they start out with nothing I tend to get depressed because either they have just stripped off for someone else or, in my line of work, they are usually dead.

— Lindsey Davis

“The plumber plodded along in silence, like a man who has learned to be polite to lunatics through dealing with civil engineers.”

— Lindsey Davis

“You could tell those two had been married by the way that she ignored him.”

— Lindsey Davis

In my experience, men who sit in corners are the ones to watch.

— Lindsey Davis

He listened with the mild demeanour of a man who had waited eight years for his town council to draw up a specification for emergency repairs.

— Lindsey Davis

“Popular men who laugh at your jokes pose a threat which blatant villains can never command.”

— Lindsey Davis

“Some men are born lucky. Others are born Marcus Didius Falco.”

— Lindsey Davis

I had been right in the first place. Getting involved with politicians is complete stupidity.

— Lindsey Davis

It struck me there might be a reason why Helena Justina whipped along at such a cracking pace: she did not want to be stuck in the wilderness with my corpse. I thanked Jove for her ruthless good sense. I did not want my corpse to be stuck with her in any case.

— Lindsey Davis

“We marched him to the turfy shack where he lived with his parents and while the youth sulked Petronius Longus put the whole moral issue in succinct terms to them: Ollia's father was a legionary veteran who had served in Egypt and Syria for over twenty years until he left with double pay, three medals, and a diploma that made Ollia legitimate; he now ran a boxers' training school where he was famous for his high-minded attitude and his fighters were notorious for their loyalty to him ... The old fisherman was a toothless, hapless, faithless cove you would not trust too near you with a filleting knife, but whether from fear or simple cunning he co-operated eagerly. The lad agreed to marry the girl and since Silvia would never abandon Ollia here, we decided that the fisherboy had to come back with us to Rome. His relations looked impressed by this result. We accepted it as the best we could achieve.”

— Lindsey Davis

“He had the kind of personality that makes you think a boy will grow up to be a public torturer. However,”

— Lindsey Davis

“Have any sheep been seen walking out of the Library with seagoing adventurers clinging to their wool?”

— Lindsey Davis

“Falco readers are, I must say, the most strikingly nice group of people.”

— Lindsey Davis

Petronius would take his free bread buns and run. I happened to know that since Petro had been elected to the watch he had never cast a vote. He believed a man on a public salary should be impartial. I didn't agree but I admired him being so stubborn in his eccentricities. Aufidius Crispus would be an unusual politician if he had allowed for such morality in the voters he was courting.

— Lindsey Davis

“They were not beggars; well, not in the usual sense. They were Christians, who wanted not just my nephews' money but their souls.”

— Lindsey Davis

Compulsory reading for anyone who has a pig, an aunt or a sense of humor.

— Lindsey Davis

“Most professionals specialize in only part of the complex community revitalization process. Incomplete efforts usually create messy, expensive, demoralizing failures. Few specialists understand how to bring a place back to life with a holistic approach. If anyone understands the complete revitalization process, it's Storm Cunningham. He's spent over a decade rigorously studying successes and failures worldwide. He can look at a community, regional, or organizational regeneration or redevelopment process, and quickly spot what's wrong ... what's missing.”

— Lindsey Davis

“A good bathe when you really need it can get you over almost anything.”

— Lindsey Davis