I met Che Guevara sharp as a cat

I met Che Guevara sharp as a cat in Cuba, and Guy Burgess swollen with drink and self-reproach in Moscow, and Kim Philby, whom I thought I could have loved, deceiving us all in Lebanon. I watched Eichmann humdrum and offended within the bullet-proof glass of his courtroom cage, the common man personified as the murderer he was. I saw Powers the aerial spy paraded before the People's Court, the peasants stumbling in to give their evidence like figures from Tolstoy, the thick-set judges solemn at their dais, the sense of vast unseen forces at play behind those puppets. I watched my own beloved army floundering in degradation as it was forced, year by year, from its last imperial footholds, now and then spitting back like a cornered animal, and forced at last into that distasteful ignominy, Suez.

J. Morris, Conundrum (1974), 79-80

The place and function of rhetoric in the public life of the Empire had changed

The place and function of rhetoric in the public life of the Empire had changed: between the reign of Augustus and the end of the second century, every city in the Greek east that still had any vestige of democracy shed it on coming under the umbrella of Rome

A. Cameron, Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire (1991), 76

In Paris do they always have the true answer?

"Therefore you don't have a single answer to your questions?"
"Adso, if I did I would teach theology in Paris."
"In Paris do they always have the true answer?"
"Never," William said, "but they are very sure of their errors."

U.Eco, The Name of the Rose (1980), 306

Bad Table manners have broken up more marriages than infidelity

Breaking with convention, I watched Gigi last night. There were some fantastic lines (the script is here). Here my favourites:

Aunt Alicia: Bad Table manners have broken up more marriages than infidelity

Aunt Alicia: [Learning] English? I supose we must. they refuse to learn French

Gigi: She is common
Gaston: Common? How do  you mean common? "Ordinary" common or "coarse" common?
Gigi: Ordinary ... and coarse

Gaston: Uncle! I'll tell you Europe is breeding a generation of vandals and ingrates. Children are coming into the world with ice-covered souls and hatchets in their hands! And before they have finished, they'll smash everything beautiful and decent.
Honore Lachaille: Have a piece of cheese

They don't make them like they used to