Sacré Bleu Quotes

“How do you know, when you think blue — when you say blue — that you are talking about the same blue as anyone else?

You cannot get a grip on blue.

Blue is the sky, the sea, a god’s eye, a devil’s tail, a birth, a strangulation, a virgin’s cloak, a monkey’s ass. It’s a butterfly, a bird, a spicy joke, the saddest song, the brightest day.

Blue is sly, slick, it slides into the room sideways, a slippery trickster.

This is a story about the color blue, and like blue, there’s nothing true about it. Blue is beauty, not truth. ‘True blue’ is a ruse, a rhyme; it’s there, then it’s not. Blue is a deeply sneaky color.”
― Christopher Moore, Sacré Bleu: A Comedy d'Art

“But she's a redhead, so she's probably evil, even at her tender age."

"I thought you liked redheads."

"I do. What's your point?”
― Christopher Moore, Sacré Bleu: A Comedy d'Art

“That's a horrible plan."
"Yes, but I have chosen to ignore that.”
― Christopher Moore, Sacré Bleu: A Comedy d'Art

“I love you, Lucien, but I am a muse, you are an artist, I am not here to make you comfortable.”
― Christopher Moore, Sacré Bleu: A Comedy d'Art

“It was sometimes difficult to reconcile a man's talents with his personality.”
― Christopher Moore, Sacre Bleu: A Comedy d Art

“Enchantment and seduction were fine means of persuasion, but when time is short, an awkward but quick concussion could better serve a girl's purpose.”
― Christopher Moore, Sacre Bleu: A Comedy d Art

“Love them all," said Renoir. "That is the secret, young man. Love them all." The painter let go of his arm and shrugged. "Then, even if your paintings are shit, you will have loved them all.”
― Christopher Moore, Sacré Bleu: A Comedy d'Art

“...she is too beautiful, I think, to not be inherently evil.”
― Christopher Moore, Sacré Bleu: A Comedy d'Art

“And I'll have you know that if you hurt my son again, if he so much as sighs sadly over his coffee, I will hire a man, a Russian, probably, to hunt you down and rip all that shiny black hair from your head, then break your skinny arms and legs, and set you on fire, and then put you out with a hammer. And should there be children from your beastly rutting, I shall have the Russian man cut them to tiny pieces and feed them to Madame Jacob's dog. because, although he may be only a worthless, simpleminded, libertine artist, Lucien is my favorite, and I will not have him hurt. Do you understand?”
― Christopher Moore, Sacre Blue

“'Paint only what you see,' his hero Millet had admonished.
'Imagination is a burden to a painter,' Auguste Renoir had told him. 'Painters are craftsmen, not storytellers. Paint what you see.'
Ah, but what they hadn't said, hadn't warned him about, was how much you could see.”
― Christopher Moore, Sacré Bleu: A Comedy d'Art

“The Painting is not shit,' said Lucien.

'I know,' said Henri. 'That was just part of the subterfuge. I am of royal lineage; subterfuge is one of the many talents we carry in our blood, along with guile and hemophilia.”
― Christopher Moore, Sacré Bleu: A Comedy d'Art

“You can't just accidentally penis somebody.”
― Christopher Moore, Sacré Bleu: A Comedy d'Art

“Whistler,' Manet called. 'How's your mother?”
― Christopher Moore, Sacré Bleu: A Comedy d'Art

“Of course they won't bloody remember, they'll be dead.' Then she called him a name in a dead language that translated, roughly, to 'poop on a stick,' but sounded more succinct, like this: 'Of course they won't bloody remember, they'll be dead, Poopstick.”
― Christopher Moore, Sacré Bleu: A Comedy d'Art

“The Holy Mother has many faces, but you know it's her from her blue cloak. She is said to be the spirit in all women."
"Look, here she is naked and the baby Jesus has wings, " said Lucien.
"That is not the Holy Mother, that's Venus and that's not Jesus, that is Cupid, the Roman god of love."
"Wouldn't she have the spirit of the Holy Mother as well?"
"No, she is a pagan myth."
"What about Maman? Is the spirit of the Holy Mother in her?"
"No, Lucien, your mother is also a pagan myth. Come, look at these paintings of wrestlers.”
― Christopher Moore, Sacre Blue

“I like a girl with a substantial bottom,' said Renoir, drawing in the air the size bottom he preferred.”
― Christopher Moore, Sacré Bleu: A Comedy d'Art

“He preferred to not think of his mother as having hips. He preferred to not think of her as a woman at all, more as a traveling mass of loving annoyance - a mother-shaped storm that inhabited the bakery and, in bringing rain for the growth of the living things over which she hovered, didn't mind scaring the piss out of them with a few thunderbolts from time to time.”
― Christopher Moore, Sacré Bleu: A Comedy d'Art

“Henri was giggling now, barely able to contain himself. "So I'm to shovel coal into my shoes hoping no one notices, while smoke and steam - what of the vapor?"
"There's little more smoke than a cigar, and the steam would be barely visible by gas lamp. It vents out the back of your trousers, under the tail of your coat."
"Marvelous!" said Henri. "I use a similar port for my own vapors. I want to try them, immediately.”
― Christopher Moore, Sacré Bleu: A Comedy d'Art

“The Colorman slid off the morgue slab to the cold floor. Bullets pooped from his wounds and plopped on the stone as he limped naked around the room looking for something to wear. All the dead were either naked, too ripe, or too tall for him to use their clothes, so he settled on a white mortician's coat that trailed out behind him as he went. The morgue attendant pretended not to see him as he passed, figuring that a spontaneous reanimation would require paperwork that he did not wish to fill out.”
― Christopher Moore, Sacré Bleu: A Comedy d'Art

“I'm painting moments. Unrepeatable, singular moments of light.”
― Christopher Moore, Sacré Bleu: A Comedy d'Art

“Crimson, made from the blood of Romanian virgins."
"Really?" said Henri. his head was spinning and he had to lean on his cane to steady himself.
"No, not really. But it is Romanian. Made from beetles handpicked from the roots of weeds near Bucharest. but they are ugly beetles. They might be virgins. I wouldn't fuck them. You want some?”
― Christopher Moore, Sacré Bleu: A Comedy d'Art

“Do not bonk the Juliette”
― Christopher Moore, Sacré Bleu: A Comedy d'Art

“Why are you lying on the floor?” “Solidarity. And we ran out of cognac. This is my preferred out of cognac posture.”
― Christopher Moore, Sacré Bleu

“It is accepted science that God himself gave the French the gift of their cuisine, and while he was downstairs, cursed the English with theirs.”
― Christopher Moore, Sacré Bleu: A Comedy d'Art

“...and thus he found his single source of joy in the society of other people: frightening the girls with his penis.”
― Christopher Moore, Sacré Bleu: A Comedy d'Art

“I like big butts,” Renoir explained to Toulouse-Lautrec.”
― Christopher Moore, Sacré Bleu

“They are between. Not what they used to be, and not what they have become. In those times, they are nothing. And I am invisible, and I am nothing too. That is the true demimonde, Lucien, and the secret is, it is not always desperate and dark. Sometimes it is just nothing. No burden of potential or regret. There are worse things than being nothing, my friend.”
― Christopher Moore, Sacré Bleu: A Comedy d'Art

“These dogs are not fighting."
"Yes they are. Like the paintings we saw in the Louvre," said Lucien. "Gecko-Roman wrestling Father called it."
"Ah, of course," said Pissarro, as if it had become clear. "Yes, Gecko-Roman dog wrestling. Superb! I presume you haven't shown your wrestling dogs to Madame Lessard, then.”
― Christopher Moore, Sacre Blue

“Sometimes, it turned out, art was what you had to say, not how you said it.”
― Christopher Moore, Sacré Bleu

“I would paint more farms," said Toulouse-Lautrec, "but they always put them so far from the bar.”
― Christopher Moore, Sacré Bleu: A Comedy d'Art