The great pontiff took the floor to argue the case against me. I don't remember his harangue, because I was too horrified to understand such a discordant voice, and because he made his speech with a musical instrument so loud it deafened me. He had deliberately chosen a trumpet. The violence of its martial tone was supposed to make the people call for my death and to keep them from thinking rationally, as happens in our armies, where the din of trumpets and drums prevents the soldier from thinking about the importance of his life.

The priests had been told that I had dared to say that the moon was the world I came from and that their world was only a moon. They believed that constituted …

O just ones, hear me! You cannot condemn this man, monkey or parrot for saying that the moon is the world he comes from. If he is a man, all men are free. Is h…

The King's daughter didn't talk to me any more about military matters at the time, because she was afraid of being discovered alone with me early in the mornin…

The point of quotations is that one can use another's words to be insulting.

You're asking the leader of the Western world a chickenshit question like that?

To be free in an age like ours, one must be in a position of authority. That in itself would be enough to make me ambitious.