I should know, for I am Morgaine le Fay, priestess of the Isle of Avalon, where the ancient religion of the Mother Goddess is born.

I have called on the Goddess and found her within myself

I've been a schoolteacher. I always try to get the kids to finish talking before the next one starts

The road that is built in hope is more pleasant to the traveler than the road built in despair, even though they both lead to the same destination.

Morgaine laughed and mocked, but when it was a real trouble, no one could be kinder.

The Goddess has a fourth face, which is secret, and you should pray to her, as I do — as I do, Igraine — that Morgause will never wear that face.

Rome was mud and smoky skies; the rank smell of the Tiber and the exotically spiced cooking fires of a hundred different nationalities. Rome was white marble and gilding and heady perfumes; the blare of trumpets and the shrieking of market-women and the eternal, sub-aural hum of more people, speaking more languages than Gaius had ever imagined existed, crammed together on seven hills whose contours had long ago disappeared beneath this encrustation if humanity. Rome was the pulsing heart of the world.