Anna Comnena

"Even now I cannot believe that I am still alive and writing this account of the emperor's death. I put my hands to my eyes, wondering if what I am relating here is not all a dream - or maybe it is not…"

"It is extraordinary that nobody nowadays under the stress of great troubles is turned into stone or a bird or a tree or some inanimate object; they used to undergo such metamorphoses in ancient times …"

"One such was that braggart Robert, notorious for his power-lust, born in Normandy, but nursed and nourished by manifold Evil."

"The stream of Time, irresistible, ever moving, carries off and bears away all things that come to birth and plunges them into utter darkness, both deeds of no account and deeds which are mighty and wo…"

"Father and son you might liken to caterpillars and locusts, for what was left by Robert, his son fed on and devoured."

"While the abominable pope with his spiritual peace and evangelic peace, this despot, marched to make war on his own kindred with might and main - the man of peace, too, and disciple of the Man of Peac…"

"Constantine was Nature's masterpiece, a triumph, as it were, of God's handiwork. One look at him would convince anyone that here was a descendant of the mythical Golden Age of the Greeks, so infinite …"

"I, having realized the effects wrought by Time, desire now by means of my writings to give an account of my father's deeds, which do not deserve to be consigned to Forgetfulness nor to be swept away o…"