Venice, as a city, was a foundling, floating upon the waters like Moses in his basket among the bulrushes.

Venice, as a city, was a foundling, floating upon the waters like Moses in his basket among the bulrushes.

Proscription, martial law, the billeting of the rude troops, the tax collector, the unjust judge, anything at all, is sweeter than responsibility.

The only form of action open to a child is to break something or strike someone, its mother or another child; it cannot cause things to happen in the world.

The things of this world reveal their essential absurdity when they are put in the Venetian context. In the unreal realm of the canals, as in a Swiftian Lilliput, the real world, with its contrivances, appears as a vast folly.

What I really do is take real plums and put them in an imaginary cake.

Venice is the worlds unconscious: a misers glittering hoard, guarded by a Beast whose eyes are made of white agate, and by a saint who is really a prince who has just slain a dragon.