- Mei Lin: I have lied to the Chancellor.
- Empress Dowager: A word of truth lasts forever. A lie lasts only a moment, my child.
- [first lines]
- Man: What makes you laugh?
- Little Girl: I'm happy. You make me happy.
- Man: A little extra for you this week, Sunflower.
- [drops money bag and leaves]
- Little Girl: Come in now!
- Young Boy: [entering from another room] You were long today.
- Little Girl: Go wash your face and hands!
- [about money bag]
- Little Girl: Give it back!
- Young Boy: How much do we have?
- Little Girl: I'm busy. When I'm finished counting, I will tell you.
- Young Boy: Do we have enough to go to the festival?
- Little Girl: You're not smart. You never were. Mother and Father said so.
- Young Boy: Don't talk to me like that. I'm your older brother.
- Little Girl: In years only. If it weren't for my work, you'd starve to death in the streets.
- Young Boy: All I said was that I want to go to the festival. Play for a little while only.
- Little Girl: And what do we buy food with?
- Young Boy: Look at all these coins. I'm sure we could spare a few.
- Little Girl: Go, then. But do not return looking for more. Maybe you aren't as stupid as I thought, Sidao.
- Little Girl: [now we hear boy's voice as adult Sidao's] I'm sorry, Mei Lin.
- Kublai Khan: You are a Taoist monk. Permitted to eat meat, drink wine, enjoy a woman. Yet you have never taken a wife.
- Hundred Eyes: I devoted my life to the service of the Great Khan and his empire. I only have so much time on this earth. I have never taken a wife because I do my best to avoid disappointment.
- Hundred Eyes: [his advice rejected] You do not listen, do you?
- Kublai Khan: Oh, I do listen. Then I hear what I want to.
- Jia Sidao: There are so many rules. It is the rules that build the walls. To keep us apart. And no matter how we wish to break those walls down the rules allow no margin. So there we are, resting our hands on either side of the divide.
- Sorga: No matter the side, we are just people. That's why I did what I did. For you people.
- Jia Sidao: Do you believe that to be true?
- Sorga: I believe your heart and your mind are true to one another.
- Empress Chabi: You are a free man, Jia Sidao. Free from responsibility, free from blame, free to stake your claim wherever you see fit. *Outside* the palace. You will always be a citizen of the Song.
- Jia Sidao: If only that were true.
- Hundred Eyes: I fear your mind has followed your body into bondage.
- Marco Polo: You do not believe in the cause?
- Hundred Eyes: What one chooses to believe in and what one is compelled to believe in, there is a difference.
- Jia Sidao: [reciting] I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand. Do you know this proverb?
- Monk: All too well.
- Jia Sidao: Do you believe in it?
- Monk: I do not judge the decisions that you have made, and I will not understand until you set a scholar's pen to parchment.
- [laying pen down defiantly]
- Jia Sidao: [enters ceremony hall bloodied from fighting] Are you prepared to take your throne, my Emperor?
- Little Boy Emperor: Yes.
- Kublai Khan: The Great Genghis, he of the wolf, dreamed of a Mongol empire stretching throughout all of China. I have sought to realize his dream without spilling Mongol blood. I have been patient. My patience has been rewarded with the severed heads of men who have marched beside you. My scholars, ministers advised me to choose peace over war. But I am a proud Mongol. At times peace can only be achieved through cruel war. We begin the expedition to fulfill our destiny.
- Kublai Khan: You noble men willing to die for a cause greater than yourselves, return not with wealth, nor slaves, but with honor. Those of you who do not return will have your names carved in the Secret History of the Mongols. Your wives, children and parents will hold their heads above other Mongols, because in their hearts they know their husbands, fathers, their sons, gave their lives in pursuit of the last dream of our Great Genghis!
- Soldiers: [all chanting] For Genghis! For Genghis! For Genghis!
- Kublai Khan: March!