I like Wagner's music better than anybody's. It is so loud that one can talk the whole time without other people hearing what one says.

To look at a thing is very different from seeing it.

He had uttered a mad wish that he himself might remain untarnished, and the face on the canvas bear the burden of his passions and his sins; that the painted image might be seared with the lines of suffering and thought, and that he might keep all the delicate bloom and loveliness of his then just conscious boyhood.

A kiss may ruin a human life

We have quite the same ideas. No; I think our ideas are quite different. But he has been most pleasant.

Society, civilized society at least, is never very ready to believe anything to the detriment of those who are both rich and fascinating. It feels instinctively that manners are of more importance than morals, and, in its opinion, the highest respectability is of much less value than the possession of a good chef.

It is absurd to say that there are neither ruins nor curiosities in America when they have their mothers and their manners.