"I am a friend of kings and emperors, and I advise them on matters of state."

"No, Madame, but I myself was living in Venice at the end of the last and the beginning of this century. I had the honor to pay you court then, and you were kind enough to admire a little Barcarolle of…"

"I am a beacon of light in a world of darkness."

"I can cure any disease with my universal remedy."

"Sometimes I amuse myself not by making people believe, but by letting them believe, that I have lived in the most remote ages."