Christo Quotes

It appears to be monumental only because it's art. ~ Christo

This isn't a bargain, it's a deal."
"I'm not in the business of striking deals with girls in cages."
I twist my lips into a cruel smile. "Then by all means, let me out."
Elian laughs, pulls a pistol out, and shakes his head once again.
"You know," he says, approaching the cell, "I think I might like you. Thing is" – he taps his gun against my prison – "there's a difference between liking someone and trusting them."
"I wouldn't know. I've never done either. ~ Alexandra Christo

My monster found me and I'm going to find her right back. ~ Alexandra Christo

In the pits of our souls - if I amuse myself with the notion that I have a soul - Elian and I aren't so different. Two kingdoms that come with responsibilities we each have trouble bearing. Him, the shackles of being pinned to one land and one life. Me, trapped in the confines of my mother's murderous legacy. And the ocean, calling out to us both. A song of freedom and longing. ~ Alexandra Christo

Be you therefore, a wise gardener. Cultivate a deep love and respect for yourself, for you are not here to "fix" the world. You are not here to "fix" your brother or sister. It is only love that heals. And until you have loved yourself wholly by having purified the mind of every erroneous thought you have ever held - until you have loved yourself - you do not, in truth, love anyone or anything. Save in those brief moments when you let your guard down and the Love of God shines forth through you so quickly you do not even know what happened! The wise gardener cultivates a state of consciousness in which the Love of God is unimpeded. ~ Shanti Christo Foundation

He swore loudly, confused. I won't repeat the word here. I'm a gentleman. ~ Rose Christo

All our projects are like fabulous expeditions. The story of each project is unique. Our projects have no precedent. ~ Christo

I value loyalty above all else. ~ Alexandra Christo

The bigotry is so virulent that it may be time to make Christians a protected class. Right now 'Christo-phobia' and 'Biblo-phobia' are at such a fever pitch among leftists and homosexual activists, and they need to be stopped before they get carried away in their zeal and do bodily harm to someone. Once again we must remind them our Constitution says, 'freedom of religion' and not 'freedom from religion.' ~ E.W. Jackson

He belongs to the ocean. He is made from it, as much as I am. ~ Alexandra Christo

The only place where people in Manhattan walk for leisure is in the park. ~ Christo

And in another life, if I ever had a choice about who to be, maybe I would have been like him. ~ Alexandra Christo

Each time someone laughed, each time Annie elbowed me or Rafael prodded me or Aubrey asked me, wheedling slightly, to take his side in an argument, I had this feeling of floating on air, miles and miles above the clouds. Each laugh was like a song I'd always wanted to learn without ever realizing I didn't already know it. Each laugh was a new experience on its own, and yet a familiar one, and I felt that I should be thanking someone for it, but I didn't know who. ~ Rose Christo

How strange that instead of taking his heart, I'm hoping he takes mine. ~ Alexandra Christo

I've never paid mind to legends ,unless I'm the legend of discussion, but even I know the stories. Ones that warn of any human who holds a siren' s heart being granted immunity to our song. It's said that's why we turn to see foam when we die ~ Alexandra Christo

I have a heart for every year I've been alive. There are seventeen hidden in the sand of my bedroom. Every so often, I claw through the shingle, just to check they're still there. Buried deep and bloody. ~ Alexandra Christo

It's very important to understand that we never do the same thing twice; each of our projects is unique. We'll never do another 'Gates.' Each project is a unique image. We do not know in advance how the work will look. I do preparatory drawings, but they are only projections of our vision. ~ Christo

I do a lot of work that's permanent. The drawings, the sculptures, they're permanent. ~ Christo

It struck me as kind of crazy, kind of amazing, that one person could make me feel so serene just by being. ~ Rose Christo

But then even if my atoms were a sin, so what? It was like Dad had said. As far as sins went, the sin of loving another human being made for a pretty damn excellent one. ~ Rose Christo

I don't know what you're talking about. I just like animals," Rafael said. "So does Sky, except he's kind of a hippie soulbonder about it. ~ Rose Christo

He wants to be noticed. He's incapable of being forgettable. ~ Alexandra Christo

He's like ... 'I thought you were just friends.' You are my friend. You're my best friend. Why doesn't he get that? Anyway ... I think he wants your dad to rally with him. I'm pretty sure he doesn't give a damn about the dry rot in the basement."
I quirked the corner of my mouth dubiously. Dad rallying with Gabriel was pretty unlikely, considering the lengths he had gone to in proving his approval.
Rafael took one look at me, horrified, and I knew we were on the same wavelength. He whispered: "If your dad gives my uncle the safe sex talk ... ~ Rose Christo

You ought to sue."
"I don't know how to sew. I tried it once and I almost put my eye out."
If there is one thing Sahara Soto and Kerry Thompson have in common, it's their complete idiocy. In the girl's case, it's endearing. ~ Rose Christo

Now, there is no way to say how long some projects take, that's our principle. ~ Christo

Wars aren't won by running," Lira says.
"You can't win a war," I tell her. "Someone else just loses. ~ Alexandra Christo

And for every project, because it takes years, you can see the early drawings and collages as just a simple, vague idea, and through the years and through the negotiations of getting the permit, you see that every detail is now clarified. ~ Christo

For the wisest are always the humblest. ~ Shanti Christo Foundation

He broke away from my mouth and trailed his lips down the front of my throat. I felt his lips close around my scars. He kissed away their ugliness. His lips parted in tingling butterfly kisses that drained the strength from my knees. I realized he was mouthing words against my skin.
Not words. Just one word.
Mine. ~ Rose Christo

I noticed something else, too, that I hadn't before: As the sun trailed slowly west, the clouds hanging low in the sky crept closer to the canyons and the cliffs. The air all around us was misty and cool. I wondered if Heaven was like that, the clouds all around you, your best friend at your side. ~ Rose Christo

A dam inside my own heart opened up, and the feelings of heaviness and unease lifted like wind against the winter sky. I loved him. I loved his slow wit and his gruff demeanor and his tender disposition. I loved his endless empathy and his world-weary cynicism and his innocence. I loved that he was a walking, breathing paradox. I loved his lank hair and his iron earring and the tooth missing at the back of his mouth. I loved the way he laughed, music incomparable to any song, and the way he smiled, like you could see the child in him and the animal in him and the man in him all at once. I loved that he listened to crappy music, the kind that made me want to put my head through a wall, and I loved the charcoal stains on his knuckles and the pencils he tucked behind his ears. I loved that he told me to shut up as though I could actually say anything. I loved that he made me feel as though I could. I loved his short fingers and his rough palms and his long legs and his flat belly. I loved that he liked to read Kerouac but didn't know how to pronounce Kerouac. I loved his brown skin and his blue tattoos and his tempestuous blue eyes. I loved that he loved the land. I loved him. I loved him. Oh, God. I loved him. ~ Rose Christo

Legend says my entire family bleeds nothing but treasure. Of course, I've bled a lot in my time. Sirens lose all serenity when they turn from hunter to prey and pieces of their nails become embedded in my arms. My blood has been spilled more often than any prince's, and I can attest to the fact that it has never been gold. ~ Alexandra Christo

After a couple hours of this, seven-year-old Christo was beside himself. He had never been babysat before. How long was this fuckery going to go on? His sister was hysterical. He paced around our living room, now in his shirtsleeves and black pants. Pulling his golden curls nervously, he looked like the night manager of a miniature diner who had just had a party of six dine and dash. He ranted to his baby sister in Greek, This sent my mother running into the dining room laughing hysterically. I chased her. What? What did he say? Roughly translated it was Oh! My Maria! What is to become of us? ~ Tina Fey

I kissed him like he was air and I couldn't breathe. ~ Rose Christo

Each person is just an imprint of the many people who have crossed paths with us over the years, some more than others. Most of us never think to say thank you. I know I never had. ~ Rose Christo

To keep that absolute freedom we cannot be obliged to anyone. ~ Christo

In my heart, I'm as wild as the ocean that raised me. ~ Alexandra Christo

People don't tell secrets because someone needs to know them. They do it because they need someone to tell. ~ Alexandra Christo

That's the thing about risks," Kye says. " It's impossible to know which ones are worth it until it's too late. ~ Alexandra Christo

None of them can tell me a thing," my father says. "What use are sea wardens if they don't warden the damn sea? ~ Alexandra Christo

People think our work is monumental because it's art, but human beings do much bigger things: they build giant airports, highways for thousands of miles, much, much bigger than what we create. ~ Christo

Perfectionism is an enemy of good time management. If you are one of those people who needs to finish every project with absolutely no imperfections, you are undoubtedly wasting a great deal of time. Learn to recognize what is "good enough" and which activities don't demand absolute precision, and revise your approach accordingly. ~ Ernest Christo

He turned his head and gazed at me, eyes dancing and blue, remnants of a smile dancing on his face.
How beautiful he looked. Unsullied by the world's darker secrets; privy to its innocent ones. I could almost believe he was inhuman and had never known anything beyond the profound simplicity of nature, tameless and wild, and the animal hearts that beat within each and every one of us. He was Pan and I was Daphnis. I never stood a chance. ~ Rose Christo

Things like that can't be forgotten any more than they can be undone. ~ Alexandra Christo

All the problems in this world, he had told me, stem from the precept that we ought not to care about one another just because we are strangers.

Why should we not care about what happens to strangers? Could you imagine the sort of world we might inhabit if we honestly and genuinely wanted to see one another living good, safe lives? Can you even think what it might look like if we all cared about strangers as much as we cared about loved ones, so that the line between the two faded over time, and the precept - the crippling precept - disappeared altogether? ~ Rose Christo

And for me, the real world involves everything: risk, danger, beauty, energy, all we meet with in the real world. ~ Christo

It's the princes who hold the allure. In their youth. In the allegiance of their people. In the promise of the leader they could one day become. They are the next generation of rules, and by killing them, I kill the future. Just as my mother taught me. ~ Alexandra Christo

Now, to describe the process of the Wrapped Reichstag, which went from 1971 to '95, there is an entire book about that, because each one of our projects has its own book. The book is not an art book, meaning it's not written by an art historian. ~ Christo

Maybe things don't really happen for a reason," Kenneth said. "Or maybe they do. But I think it doesn't matter either way. Because we can only experience those things as humans. And because we're humans, we're going to think they mean one thing, even if they mean another. ~ Rose Christo

But the drawings are not created only to be sold. ~ Christo

The modified Mozart used by Tomatis, Paul, iLs, and others over time in an individualized therapy must be distinguished from claims made in the media in the 1990s that mothers could raise the IQ of their children by having them briefly listen to unfiltered Mozart. This claim was based on a study not of mothers and babies but of college students who listened to Mozart ten minutes a day and improved IQ scores on spatial reasoning tests - an effect that lasted only ten to fifteen minutes! Hype aside, different studies by Gottfried Schlaug, Christo Pantev, Laurel Trainor, Sylvain Moreno, and Glenn Schellenberg have shown that sustained music training, such as learning to play an instrument, can lead to brain change, enhance verbal and math skills, and even modestly increase IQ.] ~ Norman Doidge

Patches of hair stuck to his wet cheekbones. His ears were threaded with tiny little wampum earrings, except at the cartilage, where the rings were turquoise. His stubby nose ended abruptly at the bottom of a short bridge. His face tapered with a round chin, a white birthmark under his jaw. He was my favorite picture. He burned into the backs of my eyes. ~ Rose Christo

Therefore, when we arrive in a place and talk to new people about a new image, it is very hard for them to visualize it. That's where the drawings are very important, because at least we can show a projection of what we believe it will look like. ~ Christo

Look at you," he whispers. "My monster, come to find me. ~ Alexandra Christo

I had a chance to read Monte Christo in prison once, too, but not to the end. I observed that while Dumas tries to create a feeling of horror, he portrays the Château d'If as a rather benevolent prison. Not to mention his missing such nice details as the carrying of the latrine bucket from the cell daily, about which Dumas with the ignorance of a free person says nothing. You can figure out why Dantès could escape. For years no one searched the cell, whereas cells are supposed to be searched every week. So the tunnel was not discovered. And then they never changed the guard detail, whereas experience tells us that guards should be changed every two hours so one can check on the other. At the Château d'If they didn't enter the cells and look around for days at a time. They didn't even have any peepholes, so d'If wasn't a prison at all, it was a seaside resort. They even left a metal bowl in the cell, with which Dantès could dig through the floor. Then, finally, they trustingly sewed a dead man up in a bag without burning his flesh with a red-hot iron in the morgue and without running him through with a bayonet at the guardhouse. Dumas ought to have tightened up his premises instead of darkening the atmosphere. ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I want you. I want you so much. I think I want you more than anything and that scares me, sometimes. ~ Rose Christo

When we reach the wall, we can discuss your future," Elian says.
I clench my fists, appalled at his audacity and the fact that I'm being forced to tolerate it. Never the queen, always the minion.
"Discuss it?" I repeat.
"You said you wanted to come with us, and I want to make sure you're useful. You can't just be a prisoner taking up space on my deck."
"I was belowdecks," I remind him. "In a cage."
"That was this morning," he says, as though it's far enough in the past to be forgotten. "Try not to hold a grudge."
The grin he gives me is beyond taunting and I sneer, not deigning to reply. Instead I breeze past and make sure to knock my shoulder as hard as I can into his. The sooner I have his heart, the better. ~ Alexandra Christo

What?" he said. "You let me draw all over your arm in permanent ink, but I hand you a vegetable and you chicken out? ~ Rose Christo

Love is a word we scarcely hear in the ocean. It exists only in my song and on the lips of the princes I've killed. And I have never heard it from my mother's mouth. ~ Alexandra Christo

But now, today, we don't know if Over the River is truly the next project to be realized, because something very nice happened to our life in November in New York. ~ Christo

The clientel is nothing short of brutish, and most nights, glass crunches underfoot, with blood patching the beer-soaked tables.
It´s one of my favorite places. ~ Alexandra Christo

I'm the crown prince of Midas and captain of the world's most deadly ship. ~ Alexandra Christo

His hand moves from beside mine, and I feel a sudden absence. And then it's on my cheek, cupping my face, thumb stroking my lip. It feels like the worst thing I've ever done and the best thing I could ever do and how strange that the two are suddenly the same. ~ Alexandra Christo

I was going to punch the shit out him," he told me. I could feel his voice vibrating against my skin. "Luke. I didn't though. You know why?"
I'd wondered about that.
"You asked me not to. Last summer. Remember? You gave me that note. 'Stop punching people.' It's the only thing you've ever asked me to do. I can do that much for you. I think I'd do anything for you. ~ Rose Christo

I'm glad that you didn't kill me while I was unconscious."

Kye snorts a smile. "I like the way you say thank you. ~ Alexandra Christo

Lies aren't answers."
"But they sound so much better than the truth. ~ Alexandra Christo

Julius Caesar burned down a library?" I asked. "Fucker. ~ Rose Christo

Either things fall into place, or they fall apart, but either way, I have to keep up pretences. ~ Alexandra Christo

She ascends from the ocean in a way that is nothing short of celestial. The water follows her in a throne, elevating her to the height of my ship. Ocean-soaked hair runs down the length of her body, and she retains the otherworldly glow that always seems to illuminate her moony skin. Only now she is something more than just a siren, or a girl masquerading as a pirate.
She is a goddess. ~ Alexandra Christo

If you get shot," Lira says, "I'm going to treat you like you're incapable of doing the simplest tasks."
She cradles her arms around her knees to keep out the cold.
"See how you like it when I hold out my arm to help you walk, even though you're not shot in the leg."
"I'd be flattered," I say, "that you would look for an excuse just to hold my hand."
"Perhaps I'm just looking for an excuse to shoot you. ~ Alexandra Christo

We take it for granted that our parents are like trees. They never run out of boughs for us to pick fruit from. The thing is, if you pick a fruit when it's not ready, it grows back slower the next season. The more you do this, the less fruit you'll get. Keep it up, and in the end you'll have a fat belly and a barren tree. ~ Rose Christo

Missiologists have in recent years begun to think seriously about inculturation, and historians have begun to learn from them. When the Christian message is inserted into a cultural framework, if the messengers are insensitive to the local culture the result can be cultural imperialism. On the other hand, if they grant too much hegemony to the local culture, the result at best is 'syncretism' and at worst 'Christo-paganism.' Things are most wholesome when sensitive interchange takes place leading to 'a truly critical symbiosis.' But for this to happen, there must be a second stage - a time of 'pastoral follow-up work,' of catechizing and life formation enabling the new faith to express its genius in the institutions and reflexes of its new host culture. ~ Alan Kreider

Your second choice is to give me the chance to be everything you want in a husband and father. I want us to be a family, Ruby. I want to grow with you, learn with you, be with you. I want to love you and our baby, but whichever option you choose I want to be near this child forever. I'm done running from love. I've found it in you and I'm here to stay. I love you, Ruby Fleming."
-- Christo ~ Barbara DeLeo

Some of the projects we've proposed over the years have been refused. But we never do other people's ideas; our ideas come out of our two hearts and our two heads. ~ Christo

Some people burn so brightly, it's impossible to put the flames out. ~ Alexandra Christo

You don't pray?" Ram asks.
"Which one should I pray to," I say flatly, "the dragon, or the fairy?"
Ram stares at me.
I tug on my ponytail. "That's our religion," I explain, suddenly self-conscious. "A mountain fairy married a dragon. That's where we all come from."
I can see the shy smile poking at Ram's lips. "You're half-fairy?"
"And half-dragon," I remind him.
"Right. Definitely. ~ Rose Christo

He always knew what I would have liked to say, and with startling and increasing accuracy as we spent more time together. One time, for example, I was wondering exactly how he had lost that tooth at the back of his mouth when he saw my eyes on his waning grin and replied, "Ran into a fence when I was twelve." And then I wondered how the heck he could have missed the giant fence standing right in front of him and he said, "Shut up. ~ Rose Christo

We never work on only one project because we never know if we will get permission for a project. So, for 'Over the River,' we started in 1992. I was just finishing 'The Umbrellas' in Japan and California, and I was also working on getting permission to wrap the Reichstag. ~ Christo

This is how you know somebody loves you. When you can't tie your own shoes and they don't mind tying them for you. ~ Rose Christo

Helplessness, hopelessness, despair, anger and hatred are all symptoms of a fundamental delusion that has occurred within the depth of the mind. It has occurred because there has been a long history of having cultivated the skill of listening to the wrong voice. The wrong voice is the voice of ego. It has taught you to judge, to pick, to select what you will be responsible for. ~ Shanti Christo Foundation

Custer was a child once. He didn't spend his childhood killing Indians and stealing their homeland. Nero didn't spend his childhood burning Rome to the ground. Everybody was a child once. No child was born hating the world around him. You had to learn that trait. You had to pick it up from the worst pockets of the universe, the filthiest recesses of society, where the people who learned it before you deposited it when they were done. ~ Rose Christo

Therefore we have to go over the fact that all human beings are afraid by what is new. It is our work to convince them that they will enjoy it, and even if they don't, to allow us just for 14 days to create that work of art. ~ Christo

I grabbed his hand and dragged him down the street to a convenience shop. I abandoned him once inside and went down the stationery aisle. I'd already known I wanted to get him some colored pencils, but now I finally had the occasion to do it. Not long after I'd picked out a big box of them, I heard Rafael call out from another part of the store, "Trojans? Like The Iliad?"
I didn't waste a second finding him and pulling him out of that aisle. ~ Rose Christo

You can't bend to the world; you have to make it bend to you. ~ Alexandra Christo

You can't win a war. Someone else just loses. ~ Alexandra Christo

Every queen begins as a siren, and when the crown passes to her, it's magic steals her fins and leaves in their place mighty tentacles that hold the strength of armies. She becomes more squid than fish, and with that transformation comes the magic, unyielding and grand. Enough to shape the seas to her whim. Sea queen and sea witch both. ~ Alexandra Christo

Wars aren't won by running. ~ Alexandra Christo

It was the summer in America when the nausea returned, when the joking didn't stop, when the speculation and the theorizing and the hyperbole didn't stop, when the moral obligation to explain to one's children about adult life was abrogated in favor of maintaining in them every illusion about adult life, when the smallness of people was simply crushing, when some kind of demon had been unleashed in the nation and, on both sides, people wondered "Why are we so crazy?" when men and women alike, upon awakening in the morning, discovered that during the night, in a state of sleep that transported them beyond envy or loathing, they had dreamed of the brazenness of Bill Clinton. I myself dreamed of a mammoth banner, draped dadaistically like a Christo wrapping from one end of the White House to the other and bearing the legend A HUMAN BEING LIVES HERE. ~ Philip Roth

Nor had I realized until that moment how much of a group project it was to grow up. ~ Rose Christo

I glanced over his shoulder to get a look at his latest drawing. A wolf and a coyote stood side by side beneath a dual sky, sun and moon shining at the same time.

"They're brothers," Rafael said. He laid his charcoal on the grass. "Wolf is wise and judicious. Coyote's a trickster. They're the two faces of God. Everything in the world is dual-natured. Even God isn't all good or all bad."

He told me about how the sun used to be married to the moon before they quarreled and parted ways, leaving the sun to rule the world at day and the moon at night. He told me how the Wolf had sewn us all out of seeds and put us in a cloth bag to keep us safe, but the Coyote had clawed the bag open and everyone had spilled out, landing and taking root in different parts of the world. He told me about the girl with Two Faces, one half of her face devastatingly beautiful, the other half impossibly ugly, and the man who lover her anyway. He told me about the days when death lacked permanence and ten different generations lived together beneath the same stars.

He talked, as he always talked, without any real purpose, clearing his head of the cluttering thoughts that had gathered and built up until he could pour them into me. ~ Rose Christo

I don't like this, Toua," I go on. "We're like birds that have flown a very long way from their nest. We're like nettles in a garden full of hops. We shouldn't have to hide who we are. Our faces are unseen. ~ Rose Christo

The freedom of every artist is essential. ~ Christo

Just don't eat all of it," Ram fusses. "It could be tampered with. You should show it to your dad first, he'll know
"
"Ram has Seahorse Syndrome," Sahara tells me wisely.
"What's that?" I ask.
"In seahorses the dad's the one who gets pregnant and has babies. We learned about it in life science class. Ram thinks he's a mother hen. So he must be a seahorse. ~ Rose Christo

I don't like you because you're nice," Elian says.
"That says a lot about your psyche. ~ Alexandra Christo

Every year we get together and throw a big feast for the winter solstice, a festival in which every game and every confectionary you could possibly imagine suddenly become a reality. The children put on a play about the Black Bear and the Gray Bear, an age-old story that relates the Gray Bear's trip to eternity through the freezing white snow of the north. At the very end of the celebration the men and the women perform the warm dance, a giant, joyful circle dance the Shoshone invented thousands of years ago in order to send blessings to the wild animals who ~ Rose Christo

Relieved and overjoyed, I felt kind of like a five-year-old, too. I felt like a lamb that's found its way home again, or the small child each of us secretly hides at heart. ~ Rose Christo

How horrible uncertainty was. How cruel. ~ Rose Christo

We'd better go," I say. "It's time for you to make Hmong babies."
Toua pulls free from my grasp. "You little
"
"Go. Further the great Flower Clan. The mountainous homeland will sing from your victorious loins."
"You're disgusting! ~ Rose Christo

There is nothing in this world but pain and the rare moments that exist in between. ~ Alexandra Christo

Our work is a scream of freedom. ~ Christo