The City Of Falling Angels Quotes
"Venice is a very Byzantine city. That explains a lot of things."
"Venice is not for everybody. To live in Venice, you must, first of all, like living on an island, and you must like living near water."
"It’s exactly like an Irish village where everybody knows everybody else."
"You can’t move about unseen in a private car, and in that respect Venice is terribly democratic."
"Venice has the cleanest air of any city in the world."
"Everything is negotiable in Venice. I mean everything: prices, rents, doctors’ fees, lawyers’ fees, taxes, fines, even jail terms."
"I luxuriate in this world I’ve invented for myself."
"Rats are smarter than men and better organized."
"As rich as he is, he's never so much as bought me lunch!"
"We have the soul of a nomad and set little store by possessions."
"The challenge, for me, is to make my rat poison more appetizing than garbage."
"I suppose the damage to his career had already been done," I said. "Not really. He’s now being talked about as our next minister of culture."
"Rats cannot vomit," Signor Donadon was saying. "They are one of the few species on earth that are physically unable to throw up."
"My poison dehydrates them," said Signor Donadon, "it dries them out, mummifies them. So they don’t rot, and there is no plague."
"You wouldn’t feel it because rat saliva contains an anesthetic."
"I’m prepared to make my contribution to humanity, but"—Donadon winked—"humanity must be willing to make a contribution to me."
"When Doge Paolo Renier died during Carnival in 1789, word of his death was suppressed until Carnival was over so as not to spoil the fun."
"My father has never made anything like these before. You can see what I mean if you look around the room at the other things."
"There will always be master glassblowers," said Gino, "whether or not they are Segusos. But one needs artists as well."
"Giampaolo said he wanted to lead his own life. Anyway, three years ago he announced abruptly that he was leaving, and he asked to be compensated for his share of the family business."
"My view is that I belong to a great relay race of Murano glassmakers. In my opinion, the last runner does not exist."
"I gave you my first fifty years. The surprise is that the second half will belong to me. I want to start to be the owner of my life."
"Well, it will never be what it was at the height of decadence in the eighteenth century," he said. "Carnival was a powerful institution then."
"The powerful always win, and the weak always come back to be victims all over again."
"Time is precious, hence briefly: DEfund your 'Foundation' and make sure that the only place we can call home will be kept up by one daughter, two grandchildren, four great-grandsons of whom you carry photographs around."
"It was a financial loss for us. The open market would have fetched ten times what Yale paid for the papers."
"I knew it would happen as soon as Casson said he was going to prosecute a lot of very important people for criminal negligence."
"I thought it was risky for anyone to do serious business with Olga. She was full of enthusiasm but becoming forgetful and very easily confused."
"I think it’s indicative of my grandmother’s state of mind and Jane’s caution once the gossip had begun."
"I realized Jane was putting a lot of energy into making a social life for herself."
"The wheels were set in motion by my grandmother. She wanted to perpetuate the writings of Ezra Pound, but she never mentioned to us that she was giving her papers and her house to a foundation."
"It could have gotten me into serious trouble, and now, by moving these papers with the ‘Do Not Touch’ signs, I was afraid I could be accused of stealing Jane’s property."
"We were obliged to sign statements saying we would keep the terms confidential. Jane Rylands insisted on it."
"When it was over, my mother said to me, ‘Oh, these people. Now I see why I was invited to lunch.’"
"‘I’m in it for business reasons.’ She spoke about setting up Ezra Pound libraries in major cities around the world."
"I will view the submission of written questions as an invasion! We are not about to be tried by the press."
"The Mafia boss who had ordered the Bari fire, Antonio Capriati, and the Mafia boss of the Veneto region, Felice ‘Angel Face’ Maniero, lent weight to a possible Bari-Venice connection."
"‘No,’ said Mary, ‘the biggest joke is that I got fired from Yale!’"
"‘My intention,’ Olga wrote, ‘has always been that any foundation formed in the name of Ezra Pound would include Trustees from the Cini Foundation, Ca’ Foscari University, the Marciana Library and my grandson Walter de Rachewiltz.’"
"Have re-read The Aspern Papers last night, God I have a mind to make a big bonfire and burn up every single scrap of paper."
"I was struck by the similarity between what happened to your mother and the story in The Aspern Papers. Are you familiar with that novel?"
"‘We’re not allowed to show anybody most of these,’ Walter said. ‘But I can tell you about some of them. The whole story is right here.’"
"‘Selective gerontophilia’ is what Mary Laura Gibbs called it."
"‘I would like to know who paid for it.’ Mary smiled a sardonic smile."
"‘Why shouldn’t I be surprised?’ I said. ‘Months ago they ruled out arson with ‘near-mathematical certainty.’ Have you been sure all along it was arson?’"
"We dealt with the Ezra Pound Foundation. There were two competing parties, both claiming ownership of Olga Rudge’s papers: Olga Rudge on the one hand and the Ezra Pound Foundation on the other. We bought out both claims and thereby bought the papers."
"The idea of seeing Venice from the perspective of the Hidden Nest, however briefly, appealed to me."
"The experts were forced to conclude that the floorboards would have caught fire only if someone had poured flammable liquid onto them first."
"It had become a roaring blaze within ten or fifteen minutes of being set."
"Twenty-five people had been working on the restoration of the theater on January 29."
"Casson now concentrated on Enrico Carella, the owner of Viet, and his cousin, Massimiliano Marchetti."
"The motive for burning the theater, said Casson, had been to avoid having to pay a penalty for lateness in completing the electrical wiring."
"I NEVER EXCLUDED THE POSSIBILITY OF ARSON," Casson told me."
"For the past twenty minutes, he had been banging on the front door, shouting for someone to open it."
"This is when I believe he set things up for later on."
"They probably were the two young men seen running down Calle della Fenice ten minutes after the first three had gone by."
"If the electricians burned down the Fenice, then plumbers are responsible for acqua alta."
"Loneliness is not being alone; it's loving others to no avail."
"Telling the truth is the most anticonformist act I know."
"If Venice didn't have a bridge, Europe would be an island."
"In Venice loneliness is harder to notice. It's hidden, because when you leave the house, you have to walk."
"Hypocrisy is the constitutional basis and foundation of society."
"I have never led a double life. I have always declared my ‘cross and delight,’ which meant my desire for the male."
"If you don’t end this affair in a hurry, you’ll be signing your own death warrant."
"Mario was always concerned about his appearance. If he had planned this suicide himself, knowing that his body would be seen by any number of strangers, he would have wanted to be found in a more presentable state."
"We mean precisely the opposite of what we say."
"Venice is already dead. Everything is based on the exploitation of the corpse."
"Attacks on works of art, especially theaters, are unfortunately not unusual in the Italian panorama."
"Plastic is the rats’ equivalent of fast food! It means that all is well."
"Venice was watching to see how well the Beggios would fill it out."
"Rats are still imitating the eating habits of people."
"Everything is based on the exploitation of the corpse—the shameless exploitation of the corpse."
"If he were a terrorist or a Mafia boss of a certain importance, then special search teams would be set up."