Talent borrows, genius steals!

I write because it gives me the greatest possible artistic pleasure to write. If my work pleases the few I am gratified. As for the mob, I have no desire to be a popular novelist. It is far too easy.

As a wicked man I am a complete failure. Why, there are lots of people who say I have never really done anything wrong in the whole course of my life. Of course they only say it behind my back.

There is something very morbid about modern sympathy with pain.

What is abnormal in Life stands in normal relations to Art. It is the only thing in Life that stands in normal relations to Art.

And her sweet red lips on these lips of mine Burned like the ruby fire set In the swinging lamp of a crimson shrine, Or the bleeding wounds of the pomegranate, Or the heart of the lotus drenched and wet With the spilt-out blood of the rose-red wine.

The one charm about the past is that it is the past. But women never know when the curtain has fallen.