The way of paradoxes is the way of truth. To test Reality we must see it on the tight-rope.
It is a much cleverer thing to talk nonsense than to listen to it.
The tragedy of the poor is that they can afford nothing but self denial.
When he takes the knife to the canvass the servants find him lying dead with a knife through is heart and "withered, wrinkled, and loathsome of visage." and the portrait "in all the wonders of his exquisite youth and beauty." p 349
The soul is born old but grows young. That is the comedy of life.
What the worm was to the corpse, his sins would be to the painted image on the canvas. They would mar its beauty, and eat away its grace. they would defile it, and make it shameful. And yet the thing would still live on. It would be always alive. (Dorian Gray regarding his portrait)