- Young Prospero: [first lines; riding together, they come across a hanged man] Do you know what crime this man committed, Machiavel?
- Machiavel: All crimes exact the same punishment.
- Young Prospero: It's easy to kiil.
- Machiavel: [glancing at his pupil] Not even Death can look on your father's excesses with approval.
- Young Prospero: My rule will be different.
- Machiavel: You're a good pupil, Prospero. When your turn comes, I hope you'll remember that there's more justice in this world than mercy... and little enough justice.
- Young Prospero: You've been a good tutor, Machiavel.
- Machiavel: Well, if I've helped lighten the weight of generations, then my energies will be well spent.
- Young Prospero: I won't disappoint you.
- Machiavel: It's yourself you'd best not disappoint.
- Julietta: [to Paolo, the lecherous land-owner, whom she's just knocked down] You may own the land, Paolo, but you don't own the she-goats!
- Machiavel: [who's just entered the Great Hall in his Red Death costume] I have a riddle, young pupil... when a man invades Death's domain, where is Death to go?
- Machiavel: [now fully realized as The Red Death] How do you like the face of your tutor, Prospero? I had a dream, dear pupil... and in it I died, the first victim of the Red Death. I entered the realm of the Dead... came face to face with the Master himself, but Death wouldn't let me rest... sent me back to the realm of the living to be his messenger... and it seems, my pupil, that you are fouling his name!
- Prospero: How can the name of Death be fouled?
- Machiavel: There's only one fairness in life... and that's the fairness of Death. Death doesn't choose between rich and poor... young, old... man, woman... but you, dear pupil, have taken it on yourself to decide who lives and who dies, and there's no fairness in that! When you invade the domain of a neighbor, isn't it to be expected that the neighbor will retaliate?
- Prospero: You tutored me too well, old friend!
- Machiavel: [shakes his head] Not well enough.