Portrait Of A Thief Quotes

Loss was the hesitation in his voice when he spoke his mother tongue, the myths he did not know, a childhood that felt so vast and alien from his parents' that he did not know how to cross it.

What's wrong with wanting everything? Nothing, as long as you know how to get it.

For all that people in power claim to care about looting, it doesn't seem to matter when it's museums doing it.

Art was many things, but in the end it was a question asked: What do you want to be remembered for?

This was how it always went. Museums overlooked colonialism, conquest, a history of blood, until it was laid in front of them, until violence was met with violence.

How to be the daughter she was supposed to be, her parents’ American Dream. How to untangle the parts of her that were Chinese and the parts of her that were American, how both so often felt like neither.

How to make this life their own, how to love a country that had never belonged to them.

Art belongs to the creator,” Will said, his voice soft, “not the conqueror. No matter what the law says, or what treaties are signed. For too long, museums have held on to art that isn’t theirs to keep, bought more because they know they can.

Careful,” Irene said. “Museums never like to grapple with their history of colonialism. If you remove everything that was looted, then what’s left?

All parents leave their own scars. We're the ones who have to heal from them.

I want to think that I'm Chinese and American both, but depending on the country, I feel like I'm not enough of either.

For so long, the past had been a wound still open. Now he could run his finger along the mark those years had left. Scars were nothing but tissue, keratin, a reminder of what the body could endure.

Income, prestige, everything that meant certainty when you had left all that you knew behind.

We’re children of the diaspora,” Will said. He had grown up in the US, knew that no matter how much he wanted it to be, China would never be home to him. “All we’ve ever known is loss.

Once, he had thought diaspora was loss, longing, all the empty spaces in him filled with want.... But diaspora was this, too: two cultures that could both be his, history that was waiting to be made.

His parents, the first ones to go to college, the first ones to leave. They had come to America with nothing but their educations, and they had built a life here, of dreams and hope and determination. He could not be anything less than exceptional.

Her family had survived in New York for two generations, despite gentrification and rising rent prices and a healthcare system that was never kind to the self-employed.

That was the thing. She didn’t. Irene was infuriating, arrogant, more confident than she had a right to be. But—she had always managed to pull off the impossible.

She had never liked anything she did not excel at.

She could never be Chinese enough for China. She could never be American enough for here.

The role of the artist is to make the revolution irresistible. —TONI CADE BAMBARA

They had been flirting earlier—for fun, for no real reason other than that they could—but now the night pressed down on them, soft and serious. Stockholm, in the low light, was a beginning. What would happen if they pulled this off?

Alex,” Irene said, and it was a sigh. She was tired of coders who thought the world spun around Silicon Valley, tired of this girl who looked at her as though she knew everything there was to know already. “Can we work together this one time?

It was always like this, art changing hands when it shouldn’t, cultures searching for what had been lost. How could they find their lost art—how could they ever get it back—when museums were not willing to speak of where their pieces came from?

You are!” Irene snapped, and now they were both yelling, their voices echoing down the empty street. Will couldn’t bring himself to care. “You are selfish and arrogant and you would jeopardize everyone’s future just for a chance to be a part of the history you love so fucking much

My son, you are just an infant now, but on that day when the world disrobes of its alluring cloak, it is then that I pray this letter is in your hands. Listen closely, my dear child, for I am more than that old man in the dusty portrait beside your bed. I was once a little boy in my mother’s arms and a babbling toddler on my father's lap. I played till the sun would set and climbed trees with ease and skill. Then I grew into a fine young man with shoulders broad and strong. My bones were firm and my limbs were straight; my hair was blacker than a raven's beak. I had a spring in my step and a lion's roar. I travelled the world, found love and married. Then off to war I bled in battle and danced with death. But today, vigor and grace have forsaken me and left me crippled. Listen closely, then, as I have lived not only all the years you have existed, but another forty more of my own. My son, We take this world for a permanent place; we assume our gains and triumphs will always be; that all that is dear to us will last forever. But my child, time is a patient hunter and a treacherous thief: it robs us of our loved ones and snatches up our glory. It crumbles mountains and turns stone to sand. So who are we to impede its path? No, everything and everyone we love will vanish, one day. So take time to appreciate the wee hours and seconds you have in this world. Your life is nothing but a sum of days so why take any day for granted? Don't despise evil people, they are here for a reason, too, for just as the gift salt offers to food, so do the worst of men allow us to savor the sweet, hidden flavor of true friendship. Dear boy, treat your elders with respect and shower them with gratitude; they are the keepers of hidden treasures and bridges to our past. Give meaning to your every goodbye and hold on to that parting embrace just a moment longer--you never know if it will be your last. Beware the temptation of riches and fame for both will abandon you faster than our own shadow deserts us at the approach of the setting sun. Cultivate seeds of knowledge in your soul and reap the harvest of good character. Above all, know why you have been placed on this floating blue sphere, swimming through space, for there is nothing more worthy of regret than a life lived void of this knowing. My son, dark days are upon you. This world will not leave you with tears unshed. It will squeeze you in its talons and lift you high, then drop you to plummet and shatter to bits . But when you lay there in pieces scattered and broken, gather yourself together and be whole once more. That is the secret of those who know. So let not my graying hairs and wrinkled skin deceive you that I do not understand this modern world. My life was filled with a thousand sacrifices that only I will ever know and a hundred gulps of poison I drank to be the father I wanted you to have. But, alas, such is the nature of this life that we will never truly know the struggles of our parents--not until that time arrives when a little hand--resembling our own--gently clutches our finger from its crib. My dear child, I fear that day when you will call hopelessly upon my lifeless corpse and no response shall come from me. I will be of no use to you then but I hope these words I leave behind will echo in your ears that day when I am no more. This life is but a blink in the eye of time, so cherish each moment dearly, my son.

Paris and its decadence would be familiar to those who had grown up in the heart of Beijing, and there was more left to take. Still, it didn’t seem wise to linger.

But Will couldn’t help but feel like this was his responsibility. He had gotten them into this impossible situation. He would have to get them out.

She would sit at her desk and drink free, expensive cold brew, write code that would disappear into the mouth of an ever-expanding corporate giant.

Art belongs to the creator,” Will said, his voice soft, “not the conqueror.

Art could be beauty, but it was also power.

You want too much, Will." These thefts, this art. A future unfolding. "What's wrong with wanting everything?" he asked. The lights flickered on. If anyone had walked into the museum now, all they would see were these two siblings, faces turned not toward each other but to the art surrounding them. "Nothing," Irene said, but her voice was soft as a warning, "as long as you know how to get it.

It went like this: Irene had spent her whole life being measured against her brother. It hadn’t mattered at first, because why would it? She had done everything he had and more, felt a fierce, certain pride in doing so.

Will had felt that loss, had recognized in it something of himself. Going to China, those few summers that he did, was the only time he felt found. Loss was the hesitation in his voice when he spoke his mother tongue, the myths he did not know, a childhood that felt so vast and alien from his parents’ that he did not know how to cross it.

The portrait was stolen on 21 August 1911 and the Louvre was closed for an entire week to aid the investigation of the theft. French poet Guillaume Apollinaire, who had once called for the Louvre to be burnt down, was arrested and put in jail. Apollinaire tried to implicate his friend Pablo Picasso, who was also brought in for questioning, but both were later released and exonerated. At the time, the painting was believed to be lost forever, and it was two years before the real thief was discovered. Louvre employee Vincenzo Peruggia had stolen it by entering the building during regular hours, concealing himself in a broom closet and walking out with it hidden under his coat after the museum had closed. Peruggia was an Italian patriot, who believed Leonardo’s painting should be returned to Italy for display in an Italian museum. Peruggia may have also been motivated by a friend who sold copies of the painting, which would skyrocket in value after the theft of the original. After having kept the painting in his apartment for two years, Peruggia grew impatient and was finally caught when he attempted to sell it to the directors of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. The painting was exhibited all over Italy and returned to the Louvre in 1913. Peruggia was hailed for his patriotism in Italy and served only six months in jail for the crime.

On the bus, I pull out my book. It's the best book I've ever read, even if I'm only halfway through. It's called Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, with two dots over the e. Jane Eyre lives in England in Queen Victoria's time. She's an orphan who's taken in by a horrid rich aunt who locks her in a haunted room to punish her for lying, even though she didn't lie. Then Jane is sent to a charity school, where all she gets to eat is burnt porridge and brown stew for many years. But she grows up to be clever, slender, and wise anyway. Then she finds work as a governess in a huge manor called Thornfield, because in England houses have names. At Thornfield, the stew is less brown and the people less simple. That's as far as I've gotten... Diving back into Jane Eyre... Because she grew up to be clever, slender and wise, no one calls Jane Eyre a liar, a thief or an ugly duckling again. She tutors a young girl, Adèle, who loves her, even though all she has to her name are three plain dresses. Adèle thinks Jane Eyre's smart and always tells her so. Even Mr. Rochester agrees. He's the master of the house, slightly older and mysterious with his feverish eyebrows. He's always asking Jane to come and talk to him in the evenings, by the fire. Because she grew up to be clever, slender, and wise, Jane Eyre isn't even all that taken aback to find out she isn't a monster after all... Jane Eyre soon realizes that she's in love with Mr. Rochester, the master of Thornfield. To stop loving him so much, she first forces herself to draw a self-portrait, then a portrait of Miss Ingram, a haughty young woman with loads of money who has set her sights on marrying Mr. Rochester. Miss Ingram's portrait is soft and pink and silky. Jane draws herself: no beauty, no money, no relatives, no future. She show no mercy. All in brown. Then, on purpose, she spends all night studying both portraits to burn the images into her brain for all time. Everyone needs a strategy, even Jane Eyre... Mr. Rochester loves Jane Eyre and asks her to marry him. Strange and serious, brown dress and all, he loves her. How wonderful, how impossible. Any boy who'd love a sailboat-patterned, swimsuited sausage who tames rabid foxes would be wonderful. And impossible. Just like in Jane Eyre, the story would end badly. Just like in Jane Eyre, she'd learn the boy already has a wife as crazy as a kite, shut up in the manor tower, and that even if he loves the swimsuited sausage, he can't marry her. Then the sausage would have to leave the manor in shame and travel to the ends of the earth, her heart in a thousand pieces... Oh right, I forgot. Jane Eyre returns to Thornfield one day and discovers the crazy-as-a-kite wife set the manor on fire and did Mr. Rochester some serious harm before dying herself. When Jane shows up at the manor, she discovers Mr. Rochester in the dark, surrounded by the ruins of his castle. He is maimed, blind, unkempt. And she still loves him. He can't believe it. Neither can I. Something like that would never happen in real life. Would it? ... You'll see, the story ends well.

All the evidence of our crimes,” Irene snapped back. “You think someone else won’t figure it out? You think Daniel’s dad will just let us go, because—what? Because family just gets a free pass on international art theft? Because you want us to keep going?

Chinese government could’ve been one and the same, different puppeteers pulling the same strings.

Marie Antoinette, who was guillotined by the French public. France has a long, bloody history. Our role is not to pass modern-day judgment, but to remember, to preserve. To serve as record keepers for the next generation.

was supposed to be in New York City, surrounded by skyscrapers and other consulting interns, getting paid too much money to solve problems for wealthy corporations.

All parents leave their own scars. We’re the ones who have to heal from them.

Diaspora had always been an unmooring, a boat cast free.

我爱你.

Twenty years, and she had never called China hers. How could she when she had never been? She did not know its songs, its roads, its rivers. She did not know the terms of address for kin, the names of provinces, anything that she ought. All she knew was that her parents had left, and that they did not speak of what they had left behind. [...] Twenty years, and she was used to being asked where she was from, to giving an answer that felt like a lie. She could never be Chinese enough for China. She could never be American enough for here.

They had lived through a pandemic, through all that had come with it. What could they not survive?

These sculptures have always belonged to China,” he said. “Wherever they are, they will always be ours. We know it in our hearts.

known

Their crew—all Chinese, all billionaires—were protected by their government, by the ease of wealth, by their names and their legacies. But the five of them—

Worth should not have been measured like this, in the weight of Ivy League syllables and tuition paid like an offering, but this, always, had been the American Dream. It had been the best moment of his life.

Congratulations,” Yuling said. Her voice was crisp, certain, pleased. “All five zodiac heads are coming home. The Met, the KODE, and the British Museum have all reached out to us this morning with an apology and a public acknowledgment of our right to this art.

Bá—miáo—zhù—zhaˇng,

For all that she loved it, she had wanted nothing more than to leave.

Win as though you’re used to it and lose as if you like it. —ISABELLA STEWART GARDNER

Once, he had asked Lily how she was so sure her parents loved her if they were so rarely home, if they did not say it in as many words. She had looked at him, her gaze steady and searching. Because, she had said, no matter how busy they are, they always pick up when I call.

In that empty house, he listened to his dad's voicemail again and cried until he felt empty, until it felt like someone had reached a hand inside him and taken everything out.

All of Beijing was reflected in the blaze of her eyes.

He was sure it was worth hundreds of thousands, but that wasn't the important thing. The important thing was that it had been China's and then it had been Harvard's, and now it was his. He thought back to the paper he had written for class, 'what is ours is not ours: who can determine what counted as theft when museums and countries and civilizations saw the spoils of conquests as rightfully earned.

For now, it was just the two of them, the small, quiet moments in which they could find healing.

If I passed a thief, I’d know he was a thief. In level-four Buddhism, your sixth sense comes in. The sixth sense is why the animals ran through the hills in the tsunami. All of your senses are incredibly sharpened. If you’re an animal and you see that birds are not moving in their normal pattern and sound different, you can probably hear the wave coming in the wrong direction. It’s a coordination of all your senses. I think that’s what was happening that time. I wasn’t reading anything at the time, but that was not a mental breakdown but the arrival of the sixth

occasionally enjoy the task of shooting infrared portraits in the studio as well.” I smiled, thankful I didn’t stutter, and looked down at my hands. I could tell my parking-spot thief was a bit shocked with my choice of film because he just stared at me for a moment too long for comfort.

The crime on Darties’s list that feels closest to terrorism may be the 1996 theft of a portrait by Corneille de Lyon, a court painter during the reign of François I, the famously art-struck French king. It was François who purchased the Mona Lisa directly from Leonardo da Vinci’s studio, for four thousand gold coins, which is why the indelible work, created by an Italian, hangs in France.

Then they huddle on the bed and remove Sibylle of Cleves from the catalog and balance the painting intimately on their palms, no frame, no glass, no crowd, no guards. They regard the back of the portrait too, embossed with wax seals, each stamped with the coat of arms of a family that had owned it, charting the 450-year journey from Cranach’s hands to theirs. Holding the piece, the one and only copy that will ever exist, he’s infused with happiness, he says, released from the stress of the crime and able at last to fully savor a gift they intend to keep hidden from everyone else.

For the Mona Lisa theft, in 1911, Vincenzo Peruggia was tried in his native Italy, where he was caught. His lawyer shaped the crime as aesthetic infatuation combined with patriotic fervor. “I fell in love with her,” Peruggia said of the Mona Lisa, and it was his honor to bring the portrait home. Never mind that Peruggia had demanded cash for the painting and that France legally owns it—the ploy worked. For one of the most audacious art crimes in history, Peruggia spent a total of seven months and nine days incarcerated.

Humanities majors,” she said. “They’re always impressed by concrete skills.

What's wrong with wanting everything? - Will from Portrait of a Thief

China was many things—traffic and mountains and the brush of ink over paper, emperors and innovation and the heavy hand of an authoritarian government—but she would never call it foreign.

Grief was another foreign country, and Daniel was alone. Recklessness for the sake of recklessness, to chase away the despair of not being enough, a tattoo that burned like the Beijing sun and his father's palm across his cheek, skin blooming red with broken capillaries.