Sacré Bleu Quotes
"Well, it will keep the rain out of my eyes just as well."
"Art is not about thinking, Lucien. It is about the skill in your hands."
"Colors needed to be free of the constraint of words."
"This is how I want to go," Vincent said in a whisper. Then he died.
"In the ancient world, blue was a breed of darkness."
"Paint only what you see," his hero Millet had admonished.
"I’m teasing," said Margot, touching Pissarro’s sleeve coquettishly. "I am honored to have one of your paintings, Monsieur Pissarro."
"You hurt me," Lucien said. "You broke my heart. The pain was such that I thought I would die."
"Bonjour, monsieur," said the Colorman. "You are a painter, no?"
"The effect is called pentimento," said the guide his mother had hired. "The master has painted over another painting, and over the years, the old image is beginning to show through. It is not clear, but you can see that something has come before and does not belong."
"Crimson, made from the blood of Romanian virgins."
"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?"
"There are no windows," Juliette said. "How can you work with no windows?"
"Take her home, eat with her, and sip wine, laugh softly at sad things, make love to her and fall asleep in her arms; that’s what he wanted to do."
"I still hope to be able to start a studio of like-minded painters here in the South."
"If you see the Colorman, run. Run. You are too talented and too delicate of constitution to endure, I think. I am not mad. I promise."
"If strong French oak is good enough for our wine, it will be good for our bread, too."
"Ours is a very old profession, and no one wants to hear excuses why the baker does not have wares, so we learn tricks."
"Shhhh, son, stop crying. I’m just fucking with you."
"He’s a sensitive boy. I think he should be an artist."
"You know, the rabbit is a rodent also, and delicious."
"No one is supposed to know I am catching rats."
"They’re huge! They tried to rape and kill me."
"Much of early Paris was built from the limestone in this quarry."
"They make plaster from gypsum. The finest plaster in the world."
"I’m going to teach them to perform the chariot-race scene from the novel Ben-Hur."
"If the shoe fits, love," she said. "If the shoe fits."
"It’s not like you have to capture the bloody light; it’s dark as a black dog’s ass out here. Come in and warm up."
"You remember Juliette, from before?" said Lucien. "You mean before when she ruined your life and reduced you to a miserable wretch? Before that?"
"Well, it’s eighty percent alcohol and the wormwood in it is poisonous; I suspect what you are seeing are glimpses of your own death."
"Love them all," said Renoir. "That is the secret, young man. Love them all."
"That quality of being both strong and fragile at the same time was still there, and it appealed to a part of him that he normally kept hidden."
"The joy is in the threatening. Threats are like the love poems of head conking, and you know what a romantic I am."
"We were only allowed to help Lucien enough to keep the bakery running, and no more. He, like our father, was a foreign creature, and until he came to his senses, we were to treat him as such."
"It could all be caused by something that this color man put in the paint. Even trace amounts from breathing fumes could have caused it."
"I am completely safe and nothing can harm me."
"I see him. I'm with Juliette. We are drinking wine at the Lapin Agile. I can see him out the window. He is standing across the street with his donkey."
"It is early morning, and it is raining. I have been out in the rain, but now I'm under a roof. A very high glass roof."
"It is Gare Saint-Lazare. I have been carrying three easels and a paint box for Monsieur Monet."
"Monsieur Monet says he has no money for color. He says he is going to capture the fury of smoke and steam."
"I will need them to vent it at once, if they can."
"I want a storm of steam. Turner's ghost should stir at the storm I capture today."
"Just watch, Lucien. And don't forget to drool when the station manager returns."
"It means that Lucien can't be reasonable and behave like a proper chicken when he is hypnotized like everyone else."
"Turner's ghost should stir at the storm I capture today."
"It was a very small monkey in a very large park."
"You like to paint the women as well as the monkeys, right?"
"She's both a clown and a lesbian. At the same time! Art weeps for the missed opportunity."
"Sometimes, during the day, when there are no men here, and it’s just the girls, they forget I’m here."
"There are worse things than being nothing, my friend."
"I haven’t painted anything since she left. I’m not even a baker anymore."
"He says that they are powered by suction, yet all night we sucked and sucked while he stood on them and they never worked."
"Now the painter, he slept alone in his tiny Paris apartment and dreamed of tropical islands where buttery brown girls moved in cool shadows like spirits."
"Syphilis is a myth. It’s Greek, I think—everyone has heard of the myth of syphilis."
"The passion she’s jealous of was for the work, not the woman."
"You were partially right about the Colorman being connected to all of those women, those models. But I am not like them, I was them."
"So I’ve been shagging a drowned beggar from the morgue?"
"Drowned, dead, duplicitous slut!" Henri added.
"That’s a horrible way to put it," said Lucien.
"There’s always a price, Lucien," she said softly.
"It’s him! It’s the Colorman who decides. I am a slave, Lucien! I am bound to him."
"You’re grinning at me like lunatics? I am a creature of awesome power and divine aspect. I am the spark of invention, the light of man’s imagination."
"It was written in Latin. As perfect as if you had drawn the letters yourself, scribe. It read: ‘Sorry. Accident. Couldn’t be helped.’"
"It means we are never going to see Rome again," said Falco.
"These crazy fucks paint themselves blue all over," said Bleu. "I’m telling you, Poopstick, these are our people. They’re going to fucking love us!"
"I thought you might be angry," said Juliette.
"I mean," said Lucien, "what does Juliette do, when she’s not possessed by you?"
"I have never heard a goddess swear before," said Henri.
"It follows the streets as if on the surface."
"Oh, well then, we’ll just pretend we’re visiting London."
"You’re the gatekeeper of an ossuary. You know that, yes?"
"You know you charge people money to look at human remains, no?"
"It is mercy, Lucien. It is to save the people of Paris from starvation, Lucien."
"He’s a fucking rat, Henri. He’s disgusting and we’re going to make him delicious."
"I am not the expert. I was seven. I went into the mine only far enough to set my traps, that was all."
"We should probably stop talking. Sound carries a long way down here."
"My father died in his studio. And none of his paintings were ever found. Explain that."
"No, that’s just an expression. And yes, Lucien, yes, yes, yes your sister’s life was the price for the Sacré Bleu. I’m sorry. And I’m not a monster. I love you."
"I’m more visual than verbal, really. The painting and so forth."
"Of course, if I can draw breath I can paint."
"These are images that were seen in the dark. In the mind’s eye. I believe that these people were drawing images of animals that they saw in trance."
"I’m sorry, Professeur, the cave paintings are no more. They’ve been burned."
"And I hope that’s not all," said Lucien. "I’m sorry. I had to. I love her."
"Put your hand, with the blue, on my breast, rub it in as long as you can."
"You slept with her when she was possessed by a muse who is, as you put it, 'inordinately fond of syphilis,' particularly as a way of dispatching painters."
"I love you, Lucien, but I am a muse, you are an artist, I am not here to make you comfortable."