Best The Serpent Of Venice Quotes by Christopher Moore

"The senator put his hand on the merchant’s shoulder. "We perform service to God and state, a relief to conscience and heart, a cleansing that opens a pathway to our designs. Think of the bounteous fortune that will find you, once the rat is removed from the granary.""

""You weren’t poisoned. It was a potion from farthest China—brought overland at great expense. It was already in your glass." He reached into his robe and held up a small red-lacquered box."

""You see, that’s why I must send you."
"To convince them that you’re an enormous twat? I was speaking figuratively, love. You know I adore you, including and especially your specific lady bits, but I respect the awesome twattiness with which you wield dominion over the realm."

""Toi, mon amour," said she, in the teasing tongue of the frog. She kissed me lightly on the eyebrow and danced across our bedchamber to a heavy table where lay paper, ink, and quill."

""Because you are drunk."
"Oh, do fuck off. You Muslims and your aversion to drink. Fucking slaughter the greater part of the Western fucking world in Allah’s name, but someone wants to toast to your health and suddenly it’s all piety, prayer, throw out the pork, and let’s put draperies around the women.""

""Money is your charm, Antonio, one which we may well need in abundance to purchase the power we’ve lost with Brabantio. Another senator of the council of six.""

""By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is weary of this great world." Over her hair Portia wore a net of gold punctuated with pearls, which she picked at as if they were opulent lice."

""You speak as if one must choose one over another, but as any gentleman who has turned you around a ballroom can attest, dancing and suffering can be partners in step.""

"Oh, sweet Nerissa, I shall miss your loving snark when I am married and you are safely installed in a nunnery giving good service to priests and pirates, or in a brothel bearing the gentle jumps of rascals."

"A fine plan, I suppose, had he lived. I might have at least guided his choice."

"Enough, really, to put even the most sturdy bloke off his regimen, and I, a wan and wispy crafter of japes, what chance did I have to cling to sanity’s silken tether?"

"Oh, to be loved so much that a man might ruin himself for my loss. That, milady, is a lover."

"What magical creature, what wonder had found me there, in my most desperate time?"

"There’s an end. I can feel it. Maybe not far on."

"Dark. Yes, I’ve made friends with the dark. More than friends. I’ve learned to fuck the dark. We are one."

"I kept my mind busy during low tides, like now, by plotting intricate tortures and revenges upon my captor, between sobbing and moaning piteously over my lost Cordelia, my freedom, and my exile from light and warmth."

"The only difference between a pirate and a privateer is a flag, you know?"

""Jews do not own slaves," Shylock said."

"Well now—now it appears you need my help. You say, ‘Shylock, we would have moneys.’ You, that did spit upon my beard and kick me as you might kick a stray dog in your threshold. What should I say to you? Should I not say, ‘Hath a dog money? Is it possible a cur can lend three thousand ducats?’"

"No, what we learn is, do not fuck with Moses!"

"You call me misbeliever, cutthroat dog, and spit upon my Jewish gabardine."

"What value is a man’s flesh to me? Surely not that of a beef, or goat, or mutton."

"The law forbids me from owning property on which to collect rents."

"He mocks me for my interest, yet the law allows my people to live only on this island."

"Venice, that makes nothing, grows nothing but salt, does no other thing than trade, and is said to be the glory of the world because her laws treat all fairly."

"I would see Antonio’s Venice condemn him, sentence him to pour his blood into the canals for his beloved laws."

"I reckon he was havin’ his way with the neighborhood cats in the night."

"Treat a whore like a lady and a lady like a whore and even a great stumbling dolt like yourself shall sail on the slippery seas of passion."

"Everyone will be in costume, so no one on La Giudecca will be the wiser."

"If you stop moving, the shroud of grief will overwhelm you and you will wither and die, so you've got to find your purpose and no matter what, keep buggering on."

"Well done, Jeff. Don’t let Drool suffocate him, and you, priest, you should wear knickers when you’re out. People will think you wanton."

"Well, you are not stealing her, she goes with you freely, of her own will, and second, be not so disparaging of thieves in the night. Were you not a pirate before coming to lead the forces of Venice?"

"No girl so tender and fair, yet so opposed to marriage that she turned away the most wealthy darlings of our nation, would find her way to your sooty bosom without you did bind her with spells."

"You’re a love, Pocket. Now wake up, you’re about to wee the bed."

"Everybody knows it. And any gondolier will take you there. Why ten times the normal fare?"

"Well, not you, obviously. But the rest of them. Point is, I am small and heartbroken."

"Often have you heard that told; But my outside do behold; Gilded tombs do worms enfold."

"But what a man deserves is not always that which he requires."

"Mislike me not for my complexion, The shadowed livery of the burnished sun."

"My father has set the lottery of my destiny."

"I have been a disappointing son, a miserable merchant, a delinquent debtor, and a general disappointment to my friends and family."

"No, defend yourself, I will teach you a lesson in manners, you knave!"

"The day, the time, the moment is upon us, and I have wished nothing but that you be here, with me."

"I would have you know," said Portia, "if I were not bound by the legacy of my father, all that is mine would be yours, as would I, but these naughty times put bars between owners and their rights, for surely, without cruel lottery, my heart is yours already."

"I would have you tarry, extend the time we have together, a week, a month, even two," said Portia.

"These Florentine shoes are shit," said Portia.

"Even through silk, the marble is cold on one’s lady-bits, though," said Portia.

"Oh, lady, the world is deceived by fair ornament, by gaudy gold, hard food for Midas, or silver’s pale shine, that common drudge that is passed ’tween man and man, when the weight of beauty is what must be measured."

"Fathers and daughters do often love with barbed embrace," said Desdemona. "The love is true, if sometimes untender."

"Take comfort, love is blind, and lovers cannot see the pretty follies that they themselves commit."

"Always bribe at the highest amount you are willing to pay, at the lowest level of command. Resentment is as good as gold when loyalty is being sold."

"A man’s good name is the immediate jewel of his soul. He who steals my purse, steals trash, but he that filches my good name robs me of that which enriches him not, yet leaves me poor indeed."

"Beware of jealousy, my lord. It is a green-eyed monster which mocks the meat it feeds on."

"It helps if you tell him a story," said Polo. "Distracts him."

"Because of this," said I, brushing a tear from her cheek. "I told my story again, for the third time in four days, except in this version, Lorenzo was a hero, and it was his love for the fair Jessica that spurred him gallantly and courageously to face down an armed assassin, to rescue a nameless messenger, simply because he had carried the words from his love."

"Soon after, in Corsica, Iago found his wife in the Citadel’s laundry, folding Desdemona’s linen on a table near the great central cauldron, in which steamed a gigantic simpleton, rather than the usual load of shirts and trousers."

"Not bloody likely. But I’ll arrange to meet Michael Cassio in my quarters anytime you’d like, though."

"Bit of a knob, innit?" said the giant in the cauldron.

"You were right," said the Moor. "They are trying to start a holy war. A Crusade, from which they will profit."

"Laugh at my misfortunes, young man, but I am not the only one who has suffered withering loss."

"Methinks the lady protests just the right amount," said Emilia. "Methinks the lady is just getting fucking started protesting."

"I am a soldier, Desdemona, and not refined in my ways. It was you bade me use it."

"Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?"

"If it be proved against an alien that, by direct or indirect attempts, he seek the life of any citizen, the party he contrived against shall receive one half of his goods, and the other half comes to the state."

"Let not the greatness of a sinful man persuade you to bear all."

"There is no greater act of kindness, than war. There is no higher act of love for the republic, than to make war."

"The failure of a merchant of Antonio’s stature is the failure of our nation, so he must not be permitted to fail."

"Magic powder from the Orient," I explained to the doge. "Brought to Venice by Marco Polo, rescued and ransomed by, of all people, the alien Shylock."

"Venice, Your Grace, is no more. This was the test. You have failed."

"You know what they say, ‘There’s always a bloody ghost.’"

"We two, brothers-in-arms," said Iago. "For Venice, we thought to bring a war to end a war, for the Genoans would not dare attack us once our ships were flying the flag of the pope."

"Well, don’t blame me, you’re the one that raised her. Might have added a soupçon of human kindness to all the guilt and kvetching if you didn’t want her to run off to be a pirate."

"Oh, that’s right, you’ve never shagged a ghost, have you?"

"Pardon," said I. I raised a finger to mark the place in my oratory, then put my fingers in my ears just as the first two amphorae exploded.

"He loved you, lad. Truly. He was a bloody villain, but that was the one true bit about him."

"Arrest him!" said the doge. Guards moved on Iago and as he reached for his sword I held one of my daggers at the ready to throw. "I will kill you where you stand, you villainous wretch."