My heart beats as much as I can breathe.

Without stones there is no arch.

The militant Muslim is the person who beheads the infidel, while the moderate Muslim holds the feet of the victim.

I have not told the half of what I saw.

If you put together all the Christians in the world, with their Emperors and their Kings, the whole of these Christians, - aye, and throw in the Saracens to boot, - would not have such power, or be able to do so much as this Kublai, who is Lord of all the Tartars in the world.

The law which their prophet Mohamed has given to muslims is that any harm done to any one who does not accept their law and any appropriation of his goods, is no sin at all.

And when the Old Man wished to kill someone, he would take him and say: Go and do this thing. I do this because I want to make you return to paradise. And the assassins go and perform the deed willingly.

I speak and speak, [...] but the listener retains only the words he is expecting. [...] It is not the voice that commands the story: it is the ear.