The ancient historians gave us delightful fiction in the form of fact; the modern novelist presents us with dull facts under the guise of fiction.

I have the kiss of Walt Whitman still on my lips

Artists reproduce themselves or each other, with wearisome iteration. But criticism is always moving on, and the critic is always developing.

Yes, very sensible... People die of common sense, Dorian, one lost moment at a time. Life is a moment. There is no hereafter. So make it burn always with the hardest flame.

If you cannot prove a man wrong, don't panic. You can always call him names.

If you want to be a grocer, or a general, or a politician, or a judge, you will invariably become it; that is your punishment. If you never know what you want to be, if you live what some might call the dynamic life but what I will call the artistic life, if each day you are unsure of who you are and what you know you will never become anything, and that is your reward.

Would you like to know the great drama of my life? It is that I have put my genius into my life...I have put only my talent into my works.