A beautiful woman risking everything for a mad passion. A few wild weeks of happiness cut short by a hideous, treacherous crime. Months of voiceless agony, and then a child born in pain. The mother snatched away by death, the boy left to solitude and the tyranny of an old and loveless man. Yes, it was an interesting background. It posed the lad, made him more perfect as it were. Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.

It is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to things.

Every single work of art is the fulfillment of a prophecy; for every work of art is the conversion of an idea into an image.

The only form of lying that is absolutely beyond reproach is lying for its own sake.

The only horrible thing in the world is ennui.

All thought is immoral. Its very essence is destruction. If you think of anything, you kill it. Nothing survives being thought of.

Who, being loved, is poor?