The Sopranos: Christopher Moltisanti’s 10 Best Quotes On The Sopranos

The Sopranos was a show known for its complex, and often-unlikable, characters. Michael Imperioli’s performance as Christopher Moltisanti, an up-and-comer within the crime family, created one of the show’s longest lasting and most vivid characters. Fans hated to love him and loved to hate him.

He was as brutish as his distant cousin, Tony Soprano (the head of the family), but, like Tony, he hid a more sensitive side from those around him. While acting as Tony’s protege, Christopher would also pursue a career as a screenwriter throughout the show and it gave his character a particular penchant for memorable dialogue. Here are his ten best quotes from the show.

“Wait here, I’ll get your viagra.”

Even though he’s the youngest and by far the most inexperienced of Tony Soprano’s main crew, Christopher is never afraid to make jokes at the expense of the other crew members.

Sitting outside, Tony spots a beautiful woman crossing the street who he points out to Silvio and Christopher. Silvio asserts “I could do that, no problem.” With Christopher not even missing a beat before firing back with his putdown.

“In my thoughts, I used a technique of positive visualization. How come I always feel undermined?”

A source of many of Christopher’s problems is how unfulfilled he feels in general. He usually interprets this as a symptom of not moving up quickly enough within the crime family and it leads to him jumping the gun in numerous situations.

After violently sorting out a big problem for Tony, but in an unprofessional manner, Christopher expects to become a made man and expresses his impatience to Tony in his typically philosophical manner; much to Tony’s amusement.

“I don’t care if they shove a scud missile up your ass. This is my corner. You pay anyone but me, I’m coming back for your thumb.”

For all of his problems, Christopher is undeniably good at being a gangster. He’s fearless and ready to throw down whenever it’s required of him. In this particular instance, he casually approaches a man in a friendly and conversational manner before suddenly beating him to the ground over a pay dispute.

Once down on the ground, Christopher begins to strangle the man with his own yo-yo as he lays down the law of his territory.

“I’ll leave you here, you one shoe c***sucker… You know how fast I can run, I’ll leave you in the f***ing dust.”

One of The Sopranos’ biggest rivalries was between Christopher and fellow gangster Peter “Paulie Walnuts” Gualtieri. Much older, and far less connected than Christopher, Paulie frequently butts heads with him over their standing in the gang and what each one thinks they owe the other.

After botching a murder in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, the two become lost in the frozen maze of trees and quickly fall apart under the pressure. After Paulie loses a shoe and night falls on them, the pair really begin to crack.

“Why don’t you just f*** yourself. Save a little money.”

The somewhat respectful, somewhat hateful, back and forth between Christopher and Paulie Walnuts follows the pair no matter where they are. When one is happy, the other is often unhappy. When one is winning, the other’s usually losing.

After Paulie suggests that he may go find “a broad” to cap off a great meal, Christopher makes his own suggestion as to what Paulie can go and do.

“Pours you a drink with one hand. Judges you with the other if you take it.”

Of all of Christopher’s difficult relationships throughout the show, none is more complicated than his one with Tony. Clearly, both characters are frustrated by one another. Christopher resents Tony for his lack of upward movement in the organization while Tony resents Christopher for his lack of reliability.

Both are unable to fully express their frustrations as they’re family but Christopher particularly as Tony is still his boss above all else. This rare assessment of Tony is only said to a group of people completely outside the mafia.

“You touch a single f***in’ crust, you’re gonna wish you took that job at McDonald’s.”

When waiting for his turn in a bakery, Christopher becomes increasingly angry at the clerk serving fellow crew member Vito Spatafore before him. Not knowing who he’s talking to, the clerk refuses to back down. Things go as well as you’d expect with Christopher being his usual hotheaded self.

The situation continues to get worse until Christopher pulls out a gun and gets his pastries as he barks orders and fires bullets at the terrified clerk’s feet

“Louis Brasi sleeps with the fishes.”

The Sopranos was a show that frequently alluded to the larger gangster stories of American pop culture, particularly the iconic movies that depicted the Italian mafia in America.

During a discussion with cohort Salvatore “Big Pussy” Bonpensiero over a murder that Christopher committed without authorization, Christopher attempts to shrug it off by misquoting the famous line from The Godfather, “Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes,” which Pussy corrects him on.

“What I’m saying is…”

As Christopher’s drug addiction worsens throughout the show, he becomes increasingly worse at hiding it and his musings become more incoherent. As evidenced by his eulogy to Tony’s mother, which you can read below in its trailing-off entirety.

“They say there’s no two people on Earth exactly the same. No two faces. No two sets of fingerprints. But do they know that for sure? Because they would have to get everybody together in one huge space and obviously that’s not possible, even with computers. And not only that, they’d have to get all the people who’ve ever lived, not just the ones now. So they got no proof. They got nothing. Mrs. Soprano may have passed but who’s to say there isn’t another Mrs. Soprano just like her, or will be? Maybe not with the same fears and paranoia but the same. What I’m saying is…”

“You ever feel like nothin’ good was ever gonna happen to you?”

The tragedy of Christopher is how consistently lost he feels throughout The Sopranos without ever really finding any resolution. He struggles with addiction but inevitably relapses into it. He achieves most of his professional goals in, and outside of, the mafia but he never truly feels fulfilled by any of it.

He expresses this lack of contentment to several characters throughout the show and, in this particular instance, to Paulie Walnuts. He talks about how he feels like a fictional character with no story arc and the resulting fear that his life will never have meaning. True to form, Paulie answers his question bluntly: “Yeah, and nothing ever did. So what?”